wastewater

Study: U.S. households that can’t afford water projected to grow by the millions

kkrisberg — Tue, 24 Jan 2017 16:21:52 +0000

Study: U.S. households that can’t afford water projected to grow by the millions

Can I afford the water that comes out of my tap? It’s not a question that Americans typically ask themselves. However, a new study finds that in the next few years, many more of us might be asking that very question as we open our utility bills and realize that we’re merely accustomed to affordable water — we don’t have a guaranteed right to it.

While a good amount of research on water affordability has been conducted in the developing world, the issue has received much less attention in developed nations such as the United States. Elizabeth Mack, an assistant professor in the Michigan State University Department of Geography, Environment and Spatial Sciences, hopes to help change that with a new study she co-authored on water costs in the U.S. Her research is part of a larger effort known as the Urban Water Innovation Network, a consortium of groups addressing the many challenges facing urban water systems. For her part, Mack said she set out to answer a fairly basic question: Can people afford their water bills and how does that vary by income strata? What she found was pretty alarming: If water rates continue to go up as predicted, the number of U.S. households that can’t afford water could triple in five years.

“I think people should be concerned,” she told me.

To conduct the study, which was published this month in PLOS ONE, Mack and her research colleague, Sarah Wrase, also at Michigan State, used the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s affordability criteria for combined water and wastewater services, which states that if such bills constitute more than 4.5 percent of median household income, it’s considered unaffordable. The researchers also used income data from the U.S. Census Bureau as well as water cost data from the American Water Works Association and Circle of Blue, a nonprofit that gathers data on worldwide water resources. The study found that based on 2014 water rates, more than 13 million U.S. households — or 11.9 percent of all households in the nation — allocate more than 4.5 percent of their incomes to pay for water. And while that might not seem like a lot on the surface, Mack and Wrase write that “this is an issue for low-income and households in poverty who barely make enough money to pay for basic living expenses.”

To assess future affordability, the study considered that water costs rose 6 percent between 2014 and 2015, and 41 percent since 2010. That data was considered alongside data showing “flat” trends in household income over that last two decades. With those numbers in mind, the study found that if water prices increase more than 6 percent, more than 17 million households, or 14.7 percent of American households, will struggle to afford water. In addition, if water rates rise at the same pace as the 41 percent rise documented since 2010, Mack and Wrase find that 40.9 million households, or more than 35 percent nationwide, will have difficulty affording water. And Mack reminded me that these are conservative estimates.

In fact, the study noted that cities such as Austin, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina; Chicago; San Francisco; and Tucson, Arizona, have all experienced water rate increases of more than 50 percent in the last five years. Mack and Wrase write:

The privatization of water services could also mean much higher water rates for customers. The privatization of water services is one of the factors behind the high water costs in Atlanta, Georgia, which at $325.52 per month has the most expensive water services in the nation. For water to be affordable at these rates, households must make at least $86,805, which is 1.6 times higher than the most recent estimates of U.S. median household income of $53,657.

To gain a clearer picture of which households will likely face water affordability problems, the study divided census tracts by a median income of $32,000, the threshold needed to afford an average water bill for a household of four that consumes 12,000 gallons of water per month — that’s what EPA considers the average water consumption for a household that size. Perhaps not surprisingly, those living in tracts where median income is below $32,000 were at high-risk for facing water affordability issues now and in the future. More surprisingly, the study found that census tracts considered “at-risk” for water affordability issues — tracts where median income is between $32,000 and $45,120 — make up more than 23 percent of all American households. That translates into an additional 27 million households that may soon struggle to afford basic water and wastewater services if water rates go up as predicted or surpass those predictions.

According to the study, the states with the highest percentage of high-risk tracts are West Virginia, Arkansas, Idaho, Montana and Mississippi. In addition, a majority of both high-risk and at-risk tracts are located in urban areas, such as Detroit or Philadelphia. In fact, the study noted that the growing affordability issue in urban communities may leave some water utilities in a no-win situation, as they face higher infrastructure maintenance costs coupled with a shrinking number of residents who can afford their water bills. The study states:

If unaffordable water bills from both rising costs and a shrinking population to pay for services cause residents to fall behind on water payments, this can mean the termination of services via water shutoffs. This is not only an economic and public health issue for residents with no service, but an economic issue for utility providers who have fewer customers over which to spread the large fixed costs of water service. This means affordability issues have cascading impacts for other customers, whose water rates may rise as utilities seek to recover the costs of service by raising rates.

So, why are water rates going up? Mack tells me it’s a variety of reasons, such as climate change-related weather events that put added pressure on wastewater infrastructure, increased privatization of water, and decreasing urban customer bases. Compounding that, the cost of upgrading the country’s water infrastructure is also high — Mack said the cost of adapting water utilities to climate change is $36 billion by 2050, while upgrading a water infrastructure not updated since WWII is $1 trillion over the next 25 years.

In terms of addressing the affordability issues, Mack said one idea is to establish national guidelines for who qualifies for subsidized water bills; right now, it’s up to individual water providers as to whether certain households receive water assistance. She also said rate structures could be designed so as to not inadvertently penalize low-income households. For example, some water providers are changing their rate structures to increase the fixed component of a water bill, with additional payment due based on a household’s water consumption. However, Mack noted, the higher the fixed cost, the more low-income households pay irrespective of how much water they actually use.

Today, in the U.S., there is no national right to water. That means if you can’t pay, the water can be shut off and there’s no recourse for residents left without this very basic human need. For instance, the study noted that mass water shutoffs in Detroit in 2014 left 50,000 households without water. (Some states and localities do protect residents from having their water shut off.) There are also no national affordability standards in the U.S. that protect low-income and vulnerable populations, including children and the elderly, from going without water. But that’s not the case everywhere. In the United Kingdom, for example, it’s illegal to turn off someone’s water for non- or delinquent payment. Such a legal protection could be adopted here as well, Mack said.

“We’re not trying to shame water providers,” she told me. “But this is a really complex problem that involves people understanding how much they actually pay for water, trying to use less water if you can, funding infrastructure to make water affordable to begin with and ensuring the quality of water doesn’t suffer.”

To download a full copy of the water affordability study, visit PLOS ONE.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for 15 years.

kkrisberg Tue, 01/24/2017 - 11:21

What kind of monster privatizes WATER? Good heavens, how basic can you get? And how shortsighted, too: I don't want to live in a community where people have freaking cholera and typhoid, even if I can buy clean water.

45 000 Litres a month!
Golly.

Safe water should be a constitutional right. Can't imagine not having safe water.

Study: Fracking wastewater wells more likely located near communities of color and poverty

kkrisberg — Fri, 04 Mar 2016 23:21:21 +0000

Study: Fracking wastewater wells more likely located near communities of color and poverty

During the years that community health researcher Jill Johnston lived and worked in San Antonio, Texas was experiencing an explosion of fracking. She and the community partners she worked with on environmental health issues had a strong hunch that most of the fracking wastewater wells were being located near communities of color. So, they decided to dig a little deeper and quantify the pattern.

The results of that effort were published this month in the American Journal of Public Health. It turns out that Johnston and her colleagues were right — the study found that fracking wastewater disposal wells in southern Texas are disproportionately permitted in areas with higher proportions of people of color and people living in poverty. It’s a pattern that many researchers and advocates describe as “environmental injustice.” Environmental justice, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, is the “fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies.”

“Those who are profiting off all the oil and gas extraction in the Eagle Ford Shale (in south Texas) are very different communities from the people who bear the externalities of fracking,” Johnston, now an assistant professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine, told me. “Who’s getting the benefits and who’s getting left with the waste and the potential negative consequences?”

Johnston and her colleagues examined the pattern of fracking wastewater wells in Texas, with a focus on the Eagle Ford Shale area, a top-producing oil and gas region that covers 26 counties and where more than 1,000 new disposal wells have been permitted since 2007. According to the study, about 100,000 oil and gas wells had been drilled in the U.S. as of 2012, and each needs about 11 million to 19 million liters of water for drilling. Mixed into that water is sand and a combination of chemicals, some of which have been tied to serious health problems and disease. (To read personal health stories from the people living in the Eagle Ford Shale, read this investigative series from the Center for Public Integrity.) At each extraction well, about 5.2 million liters of fracking fluid comes back up as wastewater that’s eventually injected into a disposal well, where it has the potential to seep into drinking water supplies. In fact, the study noted that higher concentrations of chloride and bromide have been detected in groundwater that’s in closer proximity to disposal wells.

“We don’t really know yet what the consequences of these new disposal wells will be, but some of the concern is that communities in south Texas almost entirely rely on groundwater for drinking water,” Johnston said.

To analyze the disposal well pattern, Johnston and her colleagues — who were asked to conduct the study by local community groups — examined disposal well permit data between 2007 and 2014 as well as the racial composition of people living with 5 kilometers and farther from a disposal well. In that time period, they identified 1,152 disposal well permits in the study region as well as 23,435 oil and gas well permits. Overall, the proportion of people of color living near a disposal well was 1.3 times higher than the proportion of whites living near a disposal well. In census blocks with 40 percent or fewer people of color, 10 percent of people lived within 5 kilometers of a disposal well; in areas with between 40 and 60 percent people of color, 12.4 percent lived near a disposal well; and in areas with 60 to 80 percent people of color, 15.5 percent lived near a disposal well.

When it came to oil and gas extraction wells, slightly more white residents lived within 5 kilometers of an extraction well than people of color, though the study also noted that whites own more than 85 percent of the land in the Eagle Ford region. The study also found that 16 percent of the area’s domestic water wells were within 5 kilometers of a disposal well and 1.3 percent were within 1 kilometer. Study authors Johnston, Emily Werder and Daniel Sebastian write:

Permitted disposal wells can be actively used for decades, receiving millions of gallons of toxic wastes, whereas the active life of an extraction well is typically a few years. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 specifically excludes the underground injection of oil and gas fluids from the Safe Water Drinking Act, which authorizes the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate chemicals in drinking water to protect public health. Current regulations allow the oil and gas industry to inject and indefinitely store hazardous materials underground and near drinking water supplies.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t surprised,” Johnston said of the study results. “This pattern of waste being disproportionately located near people of color is a national trend and something we’ve seen for the past several decades.”

Johnston noted that most people in the area rely on private drinking wells rather than regulated community drinking water systems, which fall under EPA standards. But even when it comes to regulated water systems, she said EPA standards don’t necessarily account for all the chemicals found in fracking wastewater. In addition to the potential for drinking water contamination, disposal wells also come with air quality risks associated with daily truck traffic and growing evidence that such injection wells are linked to an increase in seismic activity.

She said that the communities of color and poverty that tend to live closer to wastewater disposal wells may also have fewer resources with which to deal with any negative health impacts. Such communities may also face less access to information about where disposal wells are being located. Johnston said regulations only require that disposal well operators alert adjacent property owners.

“I hope (the study) can help raise awareness around wastewater disposal as a potential public health risk of fracking,” Johnston said. “And help us consider the environmental justice impacts of both whether fracking is occurring and where the waste is going.”

To read a full copy of the study, visit AJPH.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for nearly 15 years.

kkrisberg Fri, 03/04/2016 - 18:21

How convenient that the story fails to mention that the EPA has now done two studies, each proving the same thing: hydraulic fracturing and related activities do not impact drinking water supplies. Gotta love the liberals with their predictable strategy of spreading fear and confusion before any facts are known, and then they clam up when proven wrong. It's that period of uncertainty they are counting on for people to make emotional decisions.

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for reading and for your comment. I'm curious as to which EPA studies you're referring — which EPA study is conclusive in its health findings? Here's an EPA study released last summer on fracking & drinking water (https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-07/documents/hf_es_erd_…). It clearly stated: "...this report is not a human health risk assessment. It does not identify populations that are exposed to chemicals, estimate the extent of exposure, or estimate the incidence of human health impacts."

That same EPA study went on to say: "From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources. These mechanisms include water withdrawals in times of, or in areas with, low water availability; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and produced water; fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources; below ground migration of liquids and gases; and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater."

Glenn, who are the liberals who are "spreading fear and confusion"? The author of this blog entry? The researchers? Or the communities who requested the researchers come and study the wastewater wells?

And even if there was no impact on water quality (which is not monitored, because they are private wells), what about the air pollution and increased seismic activity?

New study illustrates risk that climate change poses to safe drinking water, human health

kkrisberg — Wed, 23 Sep 2015 15:44:06 +0000

New study illustrates risk that climate change poses to safe drinking water, human health

For years, scientists have described climate change as a slowly emerging public health crisis. But for many, it’s difficult to imagine how a complex planetary phenomenon can impact personal well-being beyond the obvious effects of natural disasters, which climatologists say will happen more frequently and intensely as the world warms. That disconnect is what piqued my interest in a new study on old infrastructure, heavy rainfalls and spikes in human illness.

Drinking water quality is among the many adverse effects that climate change is expected to have on human health. But what exactly does that look like, how does it happen and how concerned should we be? This study, which was published earlier this month in Environmental Health Perspectives, doesn’t answer all those questions. But it does offer persuasive evidence that we should be worried enough to invest in preparations and adaptations that protect the basic foundations of good health, such as clean drinking water. Designed to assess the link between heavy rainfall, gastrointestinal illness and the presence of combined sewer overflows (CSOs), the study found that communities with aging infrastructures may be particularly vulnerable to drinking water contamination during extreme precipitation events. And climate change is only expected to increase the frequency and intensity of extreme rainfall.

“There’s a lot in the literature about precipitation and gastrointestinal illness, but we don’t fully understand the association,” said study co-author Jyotsna Jagai, research assistant professor in the Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Division at the University of Illinois-Chicago School of Public Health. “Is there something about infrastructure in certain parts of the country that might be modifying the effect?”

Jagai told me that while it’s easier to understand how heavy rainfall can affect drinking water quality in countries where people gather water directly from the source, it’s not entirely clear what’s happening in more developed countries with established water treatment and regulation systems. So, to get a clearer picture, she and her research colleagues analyzed Massachusetts data on heavy rainfalls as well as emergency room visits for gastrointestinal illness between 2003 and 2007. They examined the data across three different regions: those in which CSOs impact drinking water, those where CSOs impact recreational waters and those with no CSOs at all.

But first, a little background. CSOs happen in combined sewer systems that collect rainwater runoff, sewage runoff and industrial runoff together in one pipe for transport to a water treatment facility. That means when rainfall is particularly extreme, the amount of water can overwhelm the system, resulting in untreated wastewater being discharged into bodies of water — this where the name “combined sewer overflows” comes from. More modern systems, on the other hand, have separate pipes for stormwater and sewage. Jagai’s study cites data from the U.S Environmental Protection Agency, which reports that nearly 800 U.S. communities that are home to about 40 million people are served by combined sewer systems. Jagai and co-authors Quanlin Li, Shiliang Wang, Kyle Messier, Timothy Wade and Elizabeth Hilborn write:

Studies have demonstrated that pathogen concentrations in receiving waters are higher following CSO events. A bacterial indicator of fecal contamination, Escherichia coli, was increased in recreational waters in Ontario, Canada and Lake Michigan following CSO events. Increases in concentrations of bacteria associated with sewage, including Streptococcus, Enterococcus, and several pathogenic viruses, were seen following CSO events in the Lower Passaic River. Given the potential for increased CSO events due to changes in precipitation patterns associated with climate change, it is important to better understand impacts on human health.

The researchers found that the three regions studied experienced similar rainfalls over the five-year study period; however, they only found an association between gastrointestinal emergency room visits and heavy rainfalls in regions where CSOs affected drinking water sources. Specifically, in such regions, extreme precipitation was associated with a 13 percent increase in the expected rate of gastrointestinal emergency room visits over an eight-day period for all age groups and a 32 percent increase for people older than 65 about a week after heavy rainfall. The researchers wrote that their study “is the first we know of to demonstrate” such an association.

Jagai told me that while she had a hunch they’d find an association, she was surprised at how strong it was — “I expected the signal would be harder to detect,” she said. She also noted that the recreational water region included in the study is mostly used for boating and canoeing, as opposed to swimming, so her study likely doesn’t represent the health risk of CSO events into recreational waters. Jagai also cautioned that her study used heavy rainfall as a proxy for an overflow event — in other words, she and her colleagues can’t say for sure if an overflow event occurred during the precipitation events included in the study — and so further research is needed.

Obviously, a long-term solution is to begin modernizing old wastewater and sewage collection systems, she told me, but that’s a pretty expensive proposition. In the meantime, she said public health practitioners can use her findings to better understand which communities might be at risk and when to issue water safety advisories. The study also underscores the importance of having clear lines of communication between water authorities and local public health officials.

“It’s definitely a critical area of research, as climate change scientists expect more frequent and heavier rainfall events,” she said. “If these events are going to happen more often, we need to better understand the relationship to human health.”

To read a full copy of the study, visit Environmental Health Perspectives.

Kim Krisberg is a freelance public health writer living in Austin, Texas, and has been writing about public health for more than a decade.

kkrisberg Wed, 09/23/2015 - 11:44

Learning from Drought: Five Priorities for California

pgleick — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 13:21:54 +0000

Learning from Drought: Five Priorities for California

Droughts – especially severe droughts – are terribly damaging events. The human and ecosystem costs can be enormous, as we may relearn during the current California drought.

But they are also opportunities – a chance to put in place new, innovative water policies that are not discussed or implemented during wet or normal years.

In the hopes that California’s warring water warriors open their minds to policy reform, here are some of the issues that should be on the table now, in what could be the worst drought in California’s modern history. But here is what I fear, said best by John Steinbeck in East of Eden:

“And it never failed that during the dry years the people forgot about the rich years, and during the wet years they lost all memory of the dry years. It was always that way.”

Here are five top priorities (more will be presented in later posts):

Put in place comprehensive groundwater management. This includes monitoring and reporting of all groundwater withdrawals, integrated surface and groundwater management, pricing of groundwater withdrawals, increased wet-season groundwater recharge, and restrictions on groundwater pumping, on average, to the limit of sustainable yield. This could increase total water in storage during drought years by millions of acre-feet, benefiting urban, agricultural, and environmental users. The fact that California has perhaps the most archaic and anachronistic groundwater system in the country and overdrafts groundwater by hundreds of billions of gallons every year should be an embarrassment.
Accelerate the advanced treatment and reuse of wastewater. By some estimates as much as 5 million acre-feet of treated wastewater are produced in California and thrown away, while only around 670,000 acre-feet are currently used. Recent expert recommendations suggested that 1.8–2.2 million acre-feet could readily be used if we accelerate investment in treatment and delivery systems. Over time, even more of this wasted asset could be put to beneficial use.
Accelerate the capture, treatment, storage, and use of stormwater. Local stormwater capture has the potential to substantially enhance local supplies but money must be made available to local communities to develop stormwater treatment and re-use systems.
Accelerate installation of cost-effective water-efficiency improvements for all users. In a state where “peak water” has been reached and there are few untapped sources of new supply that are politically, economically, or environmentally acceptable, the cheapest and fastest source of water is reducing current inefficient use. Progress has been made in this area over the past few decades, but much more remains to be done by residents, businesses, farmers, and governments. These efforts could permanently cut water use by millions of acre-feet of water, without affecting economic well-being or health. Examples: expand efforts to install high-efficiency toilets, washing machines, dishwashers; replace lawns with native, low-water-using gardens; offer incentives for the rapid expansion of precision drip or sprinkler systems for all crops that can use them; and improve delivery systems for irrigation water.
Price water to accurately reflect its true cost. Many economists will tell you that prices are simple and effective tools for regulating the consumption of scarce goods. Many water users in the state have little economic incentive to conserve because water is underpriced or not priced at all; many people still pay a flat fee for water, regardless of how much they use. Most of us only pay the costs to have water treated and delivered to our homes—our water bills do not cover the full cost of withdrawing water from the environment, such as the impact on downstream fish populations or estuaries. Water users should share the cost of mitigating the harm caused by withdrawals, for example by funding habitat conservation for endangered aquatic species. And many water utilities fail to charge their customers enough to adequately maintain the vast network of underground pipes that bring clean water to our homes. This leads to costly service disruptions. More appropriate water prices and rates should cover the cost of maintaining and improving water systems.

A Pacific Institute study on water financing options in California.

Let’s do more than wring our hands during this drought; let’s do more than hope for rain; let’s do more than muddle through. And let’s not forget the dry years when the rains start again.

pgleick Mon, 02/10/2014 - 08:21

The Growing Evidence of the Threat of Fracking to the Nation’s Groundwater

pgleick — Thu, 27 Jun 2013 08:36:27 +0000

The Growing Evidence of the Threat of Fracking to the Nation’s Groundwater

For some time now, proponents of the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” have claimed there was little or no evidence of real risk to groundwater. But as the classic saying goes: “the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence” of a problem. And the evidence that fracking can contaminate groundwater and drinking water wells is growing stronger with every new study.

As most people now know, fracking is a method for enhancing the production of natural gas (or oil, or geothermal energy wells). Fracking involves injecting fluids -- typically complex mixes of water and chemicals – under high pressure into wells to create cracks and fissures in rock formations that improve the rates of production.

Whether you support or oppose fracking depends on many complex factors: the economics of the practice, perceptions about the implications for national security of relying on domestic or imported energy, the consequences for climate change from the emissions of different amounts of greenhouse gases from different energy strategies, the positive and negative implications of fracking for employment and quality of life in rural communities, and the scientific evidence about the environmental consequences of the practice, including risks to water availability, water and air quality, and local ecosystems.

Some of the most significant environmental concerns associated with fracking are related to impacts on water. In 2012, the Pacific Institute released a major study on these water-related risks. These risks include growing competition for limited water resources; the production of large volumes of contaminated wastewater that comes up with the oil or gas and must be treated, reinjected, or otherwise safely stored; truck traffic and its impacts on the water quality of streams; spills and leaks; and the risks of groundwater contamination from the drilling and fracking process or from surface seepage of improperly handled wastewater. Ceres recently released a map showing that many fracking operations are occurring in regions of the US where water stress is already a real problem.

This map, produced at www.ceres.org, shows that nearly half of all US shale gas and oil wells are being developed in regions of the US with high to extremely high water stress. The research is based on well data from FracFocus.org.

The Pacific Institute analysis concluded that a lack of credible and comprehensive data and information makes it much more difficult to identify or clearly assess the key water-related risks associated with hydraulic fracturing and to develop sound policies to minimize those risks. While much has been written about the interaction of hydraulic fracturing and water resources, the majority of this writing is either industry or advocacy reports that have not been peer-reviewed. As a result, the discourse around the issue is largely driven by opinion. Only by comprehensive and careful independent testing and monitoring is it possible to assess the full environmental and public health risks of fracking and identify strategies to minimize these risks This is particularly true for groundwater contamination, which is hard to measure, hard to monitor, and hard to track.

Because of the limited amount of data, some industry proponents have long claimed that fracking is safe. Indeed, we sometimes see statements at odds with actual scientific evidence. Here is one from the American Petroleum Institute:

“There are zero confirmed cases of groundwater contamination connected to the fracturing operation in one million wells hydraulically fractured over the last 60 years.”

Another industry proponent recently described the risks of groundwater pollution from fracking as “almost inconceivable.”

“Inconceivable”? That brings to mind the classic scene from the film Princess Bride, where Inigo Montoya says to Vizzini: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.” [Here is a link to a 10-second clip from the movie: enjoy.]

In fact, even with the limited research done to date, there is clear scientific evidence that fracking not only can -- but already has -- led to groundwater contamination, including a new study just released this week. Here are just seven separate lines of evidence:

As far back as 1984, the USEPA reported on a clear case in which hydraulic fracturing fluids and natural gas from production operations contaminated a groundwater well in West Virginia, “rendering it unusable.”
The USEPA issued a draft report in 2011 on groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming, that showed extensive presence of fracking chemicals (natural and synthetic) in shallow and deep groundwater systems. Some of this contamination may have resulted from faulty wells drilled through groundwater aquifers; some of it may have resulted from surface seepage of fracking waste fluids escaping from badly designed and managed wastewater pits.
The US Geological Survey Report issued its own independent assessment of the Pavillion, Wyoming groundwater testing that also showed high concentrations of several chemicals used in fracking.
A Canadian groundwater contamination report described a “hydraulic fracturing incident” in 2011 in which errors in well drilling and management led to the release of fracking chemicals into groundwater including isopropanolamine, benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, petroleum hydrocarbons, and more.
A Duke University peer-reviewed study showed that fracked groundwater systems pose risks to other groundwater systems that were thought to be, but were not, hydraulically separate. This study clearly shows the risks in some groundwater geologies of cross contamination.
Even more compelling, another peer-reviewed study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences documented “systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shalegas extraction.”
The latest peer-reviewed study, released this week, also shows strong evidence that increased concentrations of methane and other hydrocarbons in drinking water wells are directly correlated with proximity to gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region of Pennsylvania.

This growing evidence of a real threat to some of the nation’s valuable groundwater makes it all the more disturbing to learn that the US EPA is halting its own independent assessment of groundwater contamination from fracking in the Pavillion gas fields of Wyoming and even worse, turning that research over to a project funded by the fracking company itself. This smells rotten and is not how independent research should be done.

Far more and better research is needed, and public agencies must demand that monitoring data be independently collected, analyzed, and publicly released. But the evidence already available shows that fracking threatens our water resources. I repeat my comment above: the net effects of fracking depend on a complicated mix of the risks and benefits of the process and how one evaluates, perceives, values, and weighs those effects. But no smart public policy can be made if we turn a blind eye to the risks, fail to pursue comprehensive independent science, or even worse, deny the science and the evidence already available to us.

Peter Gleick

pgleick Thu, 06/27/2013 - 04:36

No question, the Alberta report documents contaminated groundwater during a frack operation. The company mistakenly perforated the casing (which they have to do in order to be able to inject the fluids into the rock from the well) over a very shallow rock section.

The 1984 EPA report is far less certain, however. There are alot of "may"s in there, alot less analytical data, and far less certainty than to draw a firm conclusion that fracking rendered the groundwater unusable.

As for the Duke studies, even the authors aren't blaming fracking anymore, but crappy casing jobs allowing gas to migrate upward beside the wells. Further, the first of those papers spawned some comments that discussed whether that methane might've been there before the drilling ever took place (there is plenty of shallow thermogenic gas in the northeastern U.S.) and whether it's possible that fluids can move up from about a mile depth in the intervening rock. Thus, their results are far from certain (though probably correct in Dimock, where it was indeed found that gas wells with faulty casing contaminated groundwater).

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/43/E871.full

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/37/E663.full

As for the Duke study on whether deep systems are hydraulically connected to the surface, this finding flatly contradicts decades of the understanding of hydrogeology in petroleum systems (that deep systems are almost completely isolated from shallow systems: deep saline water almost never moves upward because it's more dense than freshwater at surface). The Duke study also didn't give a timescale for the intrusion of salt water upward to even make it possible to determine whether this is possible on a human time scale. Two papers (both rebuttals to Myers, 2012, a paper that tried to use MODFLOW to demonstrate that deep-to-surface communication was possible, something that the model was never intended for and is not really capable of determining) demonstrate the high ulikelihood of this very well.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1745-6584.2012.00990.x/abs…

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gwat.12015/abstract

Further, if gas could move that freely from depth to surface, there would not be a puff of gas anywhere under the earth in any formation, shallow or deep, as it would've leaked out millions of years ago. Marcellus gas was generated hundreds of millions of years ago and remains overpressured, suggesting it's been stuck in place for all that time and that the seals overhead (and there are far more than one seal and they're very thick) have very solid integrity that fracking would not change (it's well known the fractures don't extend more than 600 m upward even in the most aggressively fracked wells, more likely only a few hundred metres in most wells, and this is measureable using microseismic). There'd be no gas worth drilling for at all. Let's not forget that gas only moves upward until it hits a permeable formation, then it goes laterally because it's taking the path of least resistance (this, of course, would divert it from rising any further).

As for the USGS study on Pavillion, the USGS also found that they couldn't find many of the chemicals the EPA said they could. Plus, the data from re-testing the EPA test wells suggests there's a halo of contamination around them, likely caused by the cement the EPA used (the potassium concentrations that the EPA said came from fracking kept steadily dropping and never reached a baseline). Plus, while the EPA suggested KOH was used in the frack fluids and would explain the high pH in the samples they took, something that they used as a main argument in making the link between fracking and groundwater quality, state regulatory records indicate KOH wasn't used but CO2 foams instead, which should decrease pH, not raise it.

That's not the only significant problem with the EPA Pavillion study (for example, they also didn't do any hydrogeological mapping to determine whether it was possible for the fluids to move upwards, something that should be standard in any ground-water contamination case study, especially one that said frack solutions were moving upward, which is unusual). The problems are numerous and it's probably a good thing they retracted it or it was going to get butchered in peer review and then they'd lose even more credibility over this.

Now, I have absolutely no love for the oil and gas industry. They've obviously engendered very little trust because of their denial of climate change and resistance to many regulations that would greatly enhance protection of the environment. There is very good evidence that shoddy well casing has resulted in contaminated groundwater in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. I have no doubt in my mind that their bleating about using gas to displace coal to lower GHG emissions is a selling point only and, if that wasn't possible, they'd be back to denying GHG emissions are a problem at all. The Pavillion EPA study indicates abandoned surface pits likely contributed to poor groundwater quality in the shallow aquifers. Finally, I like the EPA's mission and they have a definite role in ensuring water quality and air quality in the U.S., as well as regulating CO2 emissions when congress won't pass legislation to do it, though I found EPA's methodology and conclusions for the Pavillion study sorely lacking.

But fracking very likely isn't the culprit except for a handful of cases (like the Alberta example). Where oil and gas activity is responsible, poor well casing and surface activity almost certainly is.

Thank you for taking the time, and effort, to write a detailed and informative post, adding information about the cases and questions I've raised. I guess my overall response is that, despite the uncertainties and criticisms of various of the studies (some of which may be valid, of course), the bottom line is where you ended: "a handful of cases" "poor well casing" "surface activity" "crappy casing jobs" are all real risks. Well done fracking operations may pose little or no risk: but millions of wells, poorly monitored, will cause more and more problems. Even if one-tenth of a percent (0.1%) of wells are "crappy" or "poor", that is still 1,000 wells that may cause groundwater problems. If society is going to accept fracking, we have the right to insist on better regulation, monitoring, enforcement....
Thanks.

It seems all the documented incidents of contamination involve spills, well casing failure and negligence. If this is the case, there is no evidence that hydrolic fracturing as a tequneque is causing damage (as most opposition claim), but that poor practices cause damage. An obvious cause of these incidents could be lack of regulation and oversight.
However, It would be necvisary to compair incident rates involving fracing with those of other energy reasource extraction.

Personally, I work at a facility that extracts a reasource from via solution mining from a deposit 5-10 feet above a heavily utilized gas formation. Over the last 5-10 years more than 15 fracted wells have gone in around and under our location. Not being exempted from the clean water act we monitor ground water for contaminants every week, and have found no change since the fracing began. We take the issue seriously as contamination from these wells could potentially gravely impact our operation.

From what I have seen and read, hydrolic fracturing is safe as long as good practice is fallowed. If there is a problem with the implementation of this technology, it should be addressed with regulation monitoring.

Unfortunately the Oil and Gas industry use the "Drill first go to court later" business model. Also, thanks Peter, it's good to see my old man's quote being used in the right way every now and then, (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence). He was an Astrophysicist.

Peter: absolutely, society has a huge interest in making sure things are done right. The regulations, monitoring, and enforcement have to be there to get that social licence. The IEA proposed some golden rules that would only increase well costs by 7%.

http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2012/may/name,27266,…

The problem is that industry typically fights any attempts to improve standards. Typically, of course, but not always: in Pennsylvania, there's a coalition between some of the big industry players and environmentalists to set some real standards. In Illinois, new regulations were set and were accepted by some environmentalists and some industry. That being said, that's not the norm and that's disappointing.

Miguelito and Thad, it seems to me that the separation between fracking and processes necessary to implement it is meaningless in practice.
As an analogy, consider if there has been an epidemic of collapses in new buildings. Would you accept the protest "It's just because some construction firms used substandard steel, nothing to worry about"?

Dick, if there were some building collapses would it be more useful to ban all building projects or Thales a look at what caused the collapses and solve the problem, furthermore suppose these buildings were of a new design and when compared to existing designes colapsed with the same rate( of course in reality there is no acceptable collapse rate for buildings). Would it be logical to ban the new design while leaving the old design regulations the same?

We can all agree here that the use of carbon based fuels is one of the biggest problems facing is inofern times. Steps need to be taken to turn the trends around, however banning exploration and extraction of natural gas for the same rate of pollution as other drilling logically leads to banning ALL drilling, if you want that take your house off of the power grid(a good option if you can afford wind and solar units) do not drive any car gas or electric charged with the national power grid, do not buy any product that contains or is produced with the help of plastics, eat only non fertilizer grown food, and perhaps we can get the transition accomplished faster.

I totally agree that there are real risks, particularly around poor casing work and water management practices (and, moreso, from treating shale gas as a transition fuel without any policies to back that up - I worry constantly that we have lulled ourselves into complacency around NG's entirely insufficient ability to mitigate climate change.)

However, what I came to say is that, like Vizzini's 'inconceivable', I think that we as scientists and public technical voices need to consciously avoid using 'fracking' as the catch-all term it has become. Not only does it not accurately reflect where many problems originate, but we will lose the debate every time against companies who use it more specifically to retort claims of problems.

I understand (intimately) that this is a battle over public discourse that is hard to affect, but we - you! - should know better and act better, in an effort to improve the quality and accuracy of that discussion.

Alex, thank you for the comment. I partly agree -- the term is used loosely as a overarching reference to processes used to extract difficult to access fossil fuels. I use it, and used it in this post, to refer to hydraulic fracturing techniques (applied largely to NG but also to oil and to some degree geothermal wells). Moreover (and perhaps this is your point), some of the groundwater contamination results from inappropriate surface disposal of waste fluids, not the actual well operations themselves. We make this point very clearly in the paper we released on this topic. http://www.pacinst.org/publication/hydraulic-fracturing-and-water-resou….