A plume of methane flares at a natural gas hydrofracturing site in Wetzel County, W.Va. Photo: Ray Renaud
Rose Baker can no longer drink the water from her well. About four years ago, natural gas drilling companies came into Wetzel County, a rural area in West Virginia near its border with Pennsylvania. Now, Baker and her neighbors have to keep their taps turned off, as their wells are full of methane and a long list of hazardous chemicals.
“We didn’t have a problem until they started drilling here,” Baker says.
Natural gas development has increased exponentially in the past decade in the United States, fueled, in part, by the search for a cleaner-burning domestic fuel source. But does the environmental harm inflicted by extracting the gas outweigh its benefits?
Wetzel County sits atop the second largest natural gas deposit in the world. The Marcellus Shale stretches from New York through Pennsylvania and West Virginia and into parts of Maryland, Ohio and Virginia. Contained within this formation could be as much as 516 trillion cubic feet of gas — enough to meet the country’s needs for roughly twenty0 years based on current usage levels (however, only 50 trillion cubic feet, or two years worth, is recoverable using current drilling techniques).
Until recently, shale gas, which is contained in small pockets within this rock thousands of feet beneath earth’s surface, had been too costly to tap. Technological advances in a process called hydraulic fracturing — hydrofracking, for short — have changed that. The process involves pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals at extremely high pressure into a well to cause cracks in the rock so the trapped gas can escape. Of the 750 different chemicals used in fracking fluid, 29 are known or possible carcinogens. Most of the others have not been tested or researched for their toxicity.
In November 2008, Baker’s neighbor and sister-in-law, Bonnie Hall, noticed her water had turned gray and started to smell bad after a second gas well was drilled near her home. A water test came back positive for methane and the toxic chemicals benzene and toluene. Chesapeake Energy and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection both said the cause was spilled gasoline from her neighbor’s property — a mile away. Hall blames the pollution on the gas well being drilled through her aquifer.
“That’s kind of scary, because that’s our drinking water supply they’re going through to get to this natural gas,” Hall says.
The gas industry disputes the claims of Baker, Hall, and others.
“We have multiple layers of steel casing and cement that, if done properly, ensure that the hydrocarbons and fracturing fluids cannot, in any way, shape or form, communicate with freshwater aquifers,” says Travis Windle, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a natural gas industry group.
However, no one disputes that an increasing number of wells are becoming contaminated in the Marcellus Shale region. Wetzel County resident Jeremiah Majors had to install a pipe in his water well to keep the methane from building up — a pipe he keeps lit to burn off the excess gas. Members of the Wetzel County Citizens Group have lit nearby Fish Creek on fire at a natural gas seep caused by drilling. The Oscar-nominated documentary Gasland is full of images of people lighting their tap water on fire.
On the eastern edge of the shale in Rockingham County, Va., Carrizo Oil & Gas withdrew its proposal for natural gas drilling after it met fierce local opposition. The George Washington and Jefferson National Forests in Virginia are also being targeted for fracking. The forests’ management plans are currently being rewritten, and many fear the area could be opened up to gas drilling.
“Of this entire issue, that is one of the things that keeps me up at night — the potential for hundreds of thousands of acres of public land to be leased for hydrofracking,” says Kate Wofford, executive director of the nonprofit Shenandoah Valley Network. She is anxiously anticipating the draft of the forest management plan, which should be released for public comment in the spring.
The Marcellus Shale is not the only place in the Southeast seeing increased interest from gas companies. In North Carolina, most activity is focused on the Deep River Basin, which runs from Durham to Charlotte. Though hydrofracking is presently banned in the state, a bill was recently introduced into the state legislature that would potentially legalize hydraulic fracturing, and gas companies are already signing leases, primarily in Lee County.
“There’s certainly pressure to bring it here,” says Geoff Gisler, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center.
In Tennessee, gas companies currently hold mineral rights to most wilderness management areas in the state, and the Tennessee Department of Conservation has chosen not to regulate drilling.
At the federal level, the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals (FRAC) Act was re-introduced earlier this year. It amends the Bush-era “Halliburton loophole” in the Safe Drinking Water Act that exempted gas drilling from regulation, and it requires companies to disclose all chemicals used in hydrofracking. The bill died in committee last session. The Environmental Protection Agency is studying the impacts of hydrofracking on underground drinking water supplies, but the final report will not be available until 2012.
President Obama has outlined a long-term plan to have the United States burn 80 percent “clean energy” by 2035, and natural gas has been touted as a leading source. But there’s one problem: natural gas is not clean.
“Natural gas is a fossil fuel that pollutes in every stage, from extraction to burning,” Hall says. “It pollutes the atmosphere, the soil, and especially the groundwater. It’s a dangerous and deadly source of energy.”
FRACK ATTACK
Compared to mining coal, the footprint of fracking gas is at least 20 percent greater and perhaps more than twice as great on the 20-year horizon, according to a Cornell University study published last month. Fracking results in substantial emissions of methane, which is a far more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.