Are we done for? Fracking fluid found in well water!!! OMG!!1!

[Jimmy Higgins]

link

Well, a report published in a journal says that a chemical used in the fracking process was discovered in a well. Long story short, five fracks performed in Bradford County, PA. Gas then was noted in nearby wells. Fracks were several thousand feet deep. The gas in the wells was linked to the gas in the water. I'm not very familiar with the testing being spoke of in the article, but apparently gases have a signature that can be matched. There was a settlement and what not. The wells are not completely cased, which seems to be a logical explanation as to why gas could make it out, through the annulus around the well.

A couple years later, scientists come and perform testing on the water to find fracking fluid. Don't find any. So they say, lets try harder. They use some exotic testing method and get a hit on a chemical used in a lot of processes... and in a foaming agent used in fracking.

I saw this article on Facebook and thought, this seems odd. Fracking is deep. Shouldn't be cross contamination with an aquifer, which can be 100 feet deep, not 4000 feet deep where fracking can happen. The article does mention a surface spill. I would expect that to be the potential source of the contamination.

Back to the contamination found. Not mentioned in the article, the quantity, other than it was below regulatory limits. Paper is behind a pay wall, but the abstract says the reads were at a magnitude of nangrams per liter. I had to stop and think for a second. Is that PPB (parts per billion) or PPT (parts per trillion)? I've never seen anything reported to the PPT before. Even PPB isn't common. Things usually need to be in the PPM to start raising eyebrows. What is a PPT. Well, unless I'm mistaken, you'd need a trillion liters of water to find a single gram of the chemical. In fact, the quantity is so small, I ponder how reproducible that result is.

So, umm... did I say long story short? End of the world has been cancelled.

 

[ksen]

Wake me up when it really starts happening.

 

[barbos]

parts per trillion is pretty impressive but I heard it can be measured.
5 cubic meters of poison in lake Michigan is 1 PPT.

 

[Rhea]

Fracking is deep, yes, and then it fractures the rock all around it sideways AND up. The aquifer in that area is far deeper than 100 feet. The hills are on the order of 600-800 feet above the valley floors. The drilling is not done in the valley floors. So by simple geometry alone, the first THOUSAND FEET of the drill is within the aquifer. The next thousand feet can have cracks either new or old that create passageways. Bear in mind that in that area, prior to fracking, there was traditional drilling because huge pockets of porous rock contained natural gas. The pockets did not magically seal up when they decided to drill down beneath them and crack it all up.

It is important if residents have been getting gas and foaming agents in the water (and a basement full of methane?!) and have been getting nowhere having the drillers accept responsibility. Even if it is PPT, it FINALLY forces the courts to agree that yes, this stuff is coming from the well. And these people's water would be fine if this industry had not come to town.

The isotopes give an indication of how far down the chemicals came from, so that it can be assigned to the responsible cause.

Losing the drinking water in an area is no laughing matter. It's not a little deal. It is a big big big deal.

 

[dismal]

Fracking is deep. Shouldn't be cross contamination with an aquifer, which can be 100 feet deep, not 4000 feet deep where fracking can happen. The article does mention a surface spill. I would expect that to be the potential source of the contamination.

Well, you also drill a hole through the aquifer. You should run steel tubing in that hole and cement around it but if you do it wrong it can leak.

Of course if it really is an absurdly low amount the water could have been contaminated by the sampling technique, the sampling equipment or even exposure to the air in the lab.

 

[SimpleDon]

link

Well, a report published in a journal says that a chemical used in the fracking process was discovered in a well. Long story short, five fracks performed in Bradford County, PA. Gas then was noted in nearby wells. Fracks were several thousand feet deep. The gas in the wells was linked to the gas in the water. I'm not very familiar with the testing being spoke of in the article, but apparently gases have a signature that can be matched. There was a settlement and what not. The wells are not completely cased, which seems to be a logical explanation as to why gas could make it out, through the annulus around the well.

A couple years later, scientists come and perform testing on the water to find fracking fluid. Don't find any. So they say, lets try harder. They use some exotic testing method and get a hit on a chemical used in a lot of processes... and in a foaming agent used in fracking.

I saw this article on Facebook and thought, this seems odd. Fracking is deep. Shouldn't be cross contamination with an aquifer, which can be 100 feet deep, not 4000 feet deep where fracking can happen. The article does mention a surface spill. I would expect that to be the potential source of the contamination.

Back to the contamination found. Not mentioned in the article, the quantity, other than it was below regulatory limits. Paper is behind a pay wall, but the abstract says the reads were at a magnitude of nangrams per liter. I had to stop and think for a second. Is that PPB (parts per billion) or PPT (parts per trillion)? I've never seen anything reported to the PPT before. Even PPB isn't common. Things usually need to be in the PPM to start raising eyebrows. What is a PPT. Well, unless I'm mistaken, you'd need a trillion liters of water to find a single gram of the chemical. In fact, the quantity is so small, I ponder how reproducible that result is.

So, umm... did I say long story short? End of the world has been cancelled.

I believe that most of the problems with fracking aren't caused by the injection of the high pressure fluid deep below the surface to increase production but with the fluid that comes back up as waste which is often injected in shallower wells to get rid of it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fracking is deep. Shouldn't be cross contamination with an aquifer, which can be 100 feet deep, not 4000 feet deep where fracking can happen. The article does mention a surface spill. I would expect that to be the potential source of the contamination.

Well, you also drill a hole through the aquifer. You should run steel tubing in that hole and cement around it but if you do it wrong it can leak.

Of course if it really is an absurdly low amount the water could have been contaminated by the sampling technique, the sampling equipment or even exposure to the air in the lab.

Like I said, unless I can see the article, I have to doubt the reproducibility of the test.

- - - Updated - - -

link

Well, a report published in a journal says that a chemical used in the fracking process was discovered in a well. Long story short, five fracks performed in Bradford County, PA. Gas then was noted in nearby wells. Fracks were several thousand feet deep. The gas in the wells was linked to the gas in the water. I'm not very familiar with the testing being spoke of in the article, but apparently gases have a signature that can be matched. There was a settlement and what not. The wells are not completely cased, which seems to be a logical explanation as to why gas could make it out, through the annulus around the well.

A couple years later, scientists come and perform testing on the water to find fracking fluid. Don't find any. So they say, lets try harder. They use some exotic testing method and get a hit on a chemical used in a lot of processes... and in a foaming agent used in fracking.

I saw this article on Facebook and thought, this seems odd. Fracking is deep. Shouldn't be cross contamination with an aquifer, which can be 100 feet deep, not 4000 feet deep where fracking can happen. The article does mention a surface spill. I would expect that to be the potential source of the contamination.

Back to the contamination found. Not mentioned in the article, the quantity, other than it was below regulatory limits. Paper is behind a pay wall, but the abstract says the reads were at a magnitude of nangrams per liter. I had to stop and think for a second. Is that PPB (parts per billion) or PPT (parts per trillion)? I've never seen anything reported to the PPT before. Even PPB isn't common. Things usually need to be in the PPM to start raising eyebrows. What is a PPT. Well, unless I'm mistaken, you'd need a trillion liters of water to find a single gram of the chemical. In fact, the quantity is so small, I ponder how reproducible that result is.

So, umm... did I say long story short? End of the world has been cancelled.

I believe that most of the problems with fracking aren't caused by the injection of the high pressure fluid deep below the surface to increase production but with the fluid that comes back up as waste which is often injected in shallower wells to get rid of it.

Are there "shallow" injection wells (at least in the US)?

 

[dismal]

Like I said, unless I can see the article, I have to doubt the reproducibility of the test.

The link suggest they cased to 300 meters and had a high annular pressure which may have resulted in gas reaching its way up to the aquifer. You can never say never about such things. The earth's subsurface is not homogeneous.

In the comments someone notes the following:

2-Butoxyethanol is a solvent for paints and surface coatings, as well as cleaning products and inks. Products that contain 2-butoxyethanol include acrylic resin formulations, asphalt release agents, firefighting foam, leather protectors, oil spill dispersants, degreaser applications, photographic strip solutions, whiteboard cleaners, liquid soaps, cosmetics, dry cleaning solutions, lacquers, varnishes, herbicides, latex paints, enamels, printing paste, and varnish removers, and silicone caulk. Products containing this compound are commonly found at construction sites, automobile repair shops, print shops, and facilities that produce sterilizing and cleaning products. It is the main ingredient of many home, commercial and industrial cleaning solutions. Since the molecule has both non-polar and polar ends, butoxyethanol is useful for removing both polar and non-polar substances, like grease and oils. It is also approved by the U.S. FDA to be used as direct and indirect food additives, which include antimicrobial agents, defoamers, stabilizers, and adhesives.

So, this stuff is in a lot of things that might be found around a lab. And apparently food.

 

[KeepTalking]

Back to the contamination found. Not mentioned in the article, the quantity, other than it was below regulatory limits. Paper is behind a pay wall, but the abstract says the reads were at a magnitude of nangrams per liter. I had to stop and think for a second. Is that PPB (parts per billion) or PPT (parts per trillion)? I've never seen anything reported to the PPT before. Even PPB isn't common. Things usually need to be in the PPM to start raising eyebrows. What is a PPT. Well, unless I'm mistaken, you'd need a trillion liters of water to find a single gram of the chemical. In fact, the quantity is so small, I ponder how reproducible that result is.

Just picking a nit or two: a nanogram is one billionth of a gram, so it would be analogous to PPB. One PPB means that a billion liters of water would contain one liter of the contaminant. Applied to nanograms, this would indicate that one billion grams would contain one gram of contaminant. It does, however, seem odd to measure liquids in grams. I would surmise, given the nanogram measurement, that the contaminant itself is not a liquid, but rather a solid.

 

[dismal]

Are there "shallow" injection wells (at least in the US)?

Injection wells are generally going to be permitted into formations that can contain liquids - often depleted oil & gas reservoirs. (As noted in past threads, if they were not sealed, impermeable formations oil and gas would not be found in them.)

However, they could be subject to the same sort of well construction issues a producing well might have.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Back to the contamination found. Not mentioned in the article, the quantity, other than it was below regulatory limits. Paper is behind a pay wall, but the abstract says the reads were at a magnitude of nangrams per liter. I had to stop and think for a second. Is that PPB (parts per billion) or PPT (parts per trillion)? I've never seen anything reported to the PPT before. Even PPB isn't common. Things usually need to be in the PPM to start raising eyebrows. What is a PPT. Well, unless I'm mistaken, you'd need a trillion liters of water to find a single gram of the chemical. In fact, the quantity is so small, I ponder how reproducible that result is.

Just picking a nit or two: a nanogram is one billionth of a gram, so it would be analogous to PPB.

Are we both right and wrong? 1 billion liters of water for one gram (you are correct), but it is still 1 PPT (I am correct). 1 milligram per liter is 1 PPM. That is a standard.

I would surmise, given the nanogram measurement, that the contaminant itself is not a liquid, but rather a solid.

I think it may be more based on the test method. I don't think I've seen testing reporting mL to L, just ug/L and mg/kg.

 

[Rhea]

I believe that most of the problems with fracking aren't caused by the injection of the high pressure fluid deep below the surface to increase production but with the fluid that comes back up as waste which is often injected in shallower wells to get rid of it.

These particular people are having their drinking water contaminated by the drilling, not the storage.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Are there "shallow" injection wells (at least in the US)?

Injection wells are generally going to be permitted into formations that can contain liquids - often depleted oil & gas reservoirs. (As noted in past threads, if they were not sealed, impermeable formations oil and gas would not be found in them.)

However, they could be subject to the same sort of well construction issues a producing well might have.

Didn't answer the question I asked. I have presumed injection wells are at least as deep as fracking wells. Geology being geology, you'd always want a substantial buffer, I'd think.

 

[Rhea]

Didn't answer the question I asked. I have presumed injection wells are at least as deep as fracking wells. Geology being geology, you'd always want a substantial buffer, I'd think.

In the contrary, geology being geology, anything that needs to be fracked is so NOT porous that you need to break it apart to get any appreciable volume of good stuff out.

When you want to inject bad stuff back in, you need a place with large cavernous, connected chambers to accommodate the volume. So the injection wells will by definition NOT be the same layer as the fracking wells.

 

[KeepTalking]

Just picking a nit or two: a nanogram is one billionth of a gram, so it would be analogous to PPB.

Are we both right and wrong? 1 billion liters of water for one gram (you are correct), but it is still 1 PPT (I am correct). 1 milligram per liter is 1 PPM. That is a standard.

One milligram is one thousandth of a gram, and one mg/g converts to 1000 PPM. One microgram per gram (ug/g) converts to one PPM.

I would surmise, given the nanogram measurement, that the contaminant itself is not a liquid, but rather a solid.

I think it may be more based on the test method. I don't think I've seen testing reporting mL to L, just ug/L and mg/kg.

That makes sense.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Didn't answer the question I asked. I have presumed injection wells are at least as deep as fracking wells. Geology being geology, you'd always want a substantial buffer, I'd think.

In the contrary, geology being geology, anything that needs to be fracked is so NOT porous that you need to break it apart to get any appreciable volume of good stuff out.

When you want to inject bad stuff back in, you need a place with large cavernous, connected chambers to accommodate the volume. So the injection wells will by definition NOT be the same layer as the fracking wells.

Not same layer, same relative depth. Fracking wells are not in the same places as injection wells, and will be subject to different geology. Jebus... can't drill in Cleveland in two places without hitting rock at different elevations, anywhere from just below the ground surface to 300 to 400 feet deep! And that isn't because of surface ground elevation changes.

You'll want the injection site to be isolated (at least I'd think we'd want that), hence covered with a decent amount of rock.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Are we both right and wrong? 1 billion liters of water for one gram (you are correct), but it is still 1 PPT (I am correct). 1 milligram per liter is 1 PPM. That is a standard.

One milligram is one thousandth of a gram, and one mg/g converts to 1000 PPM. One microgram per gram (ug/g) converts to one PPM.

Absolutely correct! But we are talking about mg/L, which makes it 1000 times less concentrated relative to mg/g. Which is why it is extremely important to check the reported units on chemical testing results!

 

[KeepTalking]

One milligram is one thousandth of a gram, and one mg/g converts to 1000 PPM. One microgram per gram (ug/g) converts to one PPM.

Absolutely correct! But we are talking about mg/L, which makes it 1000 times less concentrated relative to mg/g. Which is why it is extremely important to check the reported units on chemical testing results!

Oops, I misread your mg/L as mg/g.

This is why I refuse to write code dealing with both weight and volume in one measurement.

 

[dismal]

Injection wells are generally going to be permitted into formations that can contain liquids - often depleted oil & gas reservoirs. (As noted in past threads, if they were not sealed, impermeable formations oil and gas would not be found in them.)

However, they could be subject to the same sort of well construction issues a producing well might have.

Didn't answer the question I asked. I have presumed injection wells are at least as deep as fracking wells. Geology being geology, you'd always want a substantial buffer, I'd think.

Yes, you'd want a buffer. No they are not necessarily deeper. You could have an injection well into a formation at 5000 feet and a producer at 8000 feet. In many oil and gas regions there are multiple stratigraphic layers to choose from at various depths. The properties that make for a good injection well horizon are similar to that which make for a good producing well. A good seal, nice porous permeable rock, etc. The one exception is in a producing well you need the presence of hydrocarbons and in a disposal well you don't.

Also there are places where the geology does not really work. Pennsylvania is one such place. I was trying to look something up on this and found a source that says there are only 8 SWDs in PA, whereas there are 50,000 in TX.

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE..._508.pdf/RK=0/RS=DgcUCFEAwnLWlqKkyPP68wac4vk-

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Didn't answer the question I asked. I have presumed injection wells are at least as deep as fracking wells. Geology being geology, you'd always want a substantial buffer, I'd think.

Yes, you'd want a buffer. No they are not necessarily deeper. You could have an injection well into a formation at 5000 feet and a producer at 8000 feet. In many oil and gas regions there are multiple stratigraphic layers to choose from at various depths.

I'm a little too programmed with our area, which isn't very oil/gas rich, but has the shales that are quite popular these days.

Also there are places where the geology does not really work. Pennsylvania is one such place. I was trying to look something up on this and found a source that says there are only 8 SWDs in PA, whereas there are 50,000 in TX.

http://r.search.yahoo.com/_ylt=A0LE..._508.pdf/RK=0/RS=DgcUCFEAwnLWlqKkyPP68wac4vk-

Jebus, 50,000?!