Over the past year, I have watched the hydro-fracturing industry rapidly expand into central Pennsylvania, and I have been disgusted by the consequences. The state forests, where generations of Pennsylvanians have hunted, fished, and hiked, have been defaced by a growing network of well pads. But even more disturbing are the effects that we can't see. Unknown chemicals are being pumped thousands of feet underground. The extreme pressures involved in the hydro-fracturing process are forcing methane gas into people's homes and into their water supplies. It's clear to me that hydro-fracturing is the single biggest environmental threat to Pennsylvania that this generation faces. I should say up front that I am not a scientist, nor am I an expert on this issue. What I've done here is try to sort through conflicting claims in order to present objectively the facts on the effects of hydro-fracturing.

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Hydrofracturing is a process used to extract natural gas from previously impermeable shale. Also known as Hydraulic fracturing the process utilizes millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals injected at high pressure into horizontally drilled wells, some as far as 10,000 feet below the surface.
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Gas drilling companies will try to convince you that using up to 6-million gallons of water for fracing one gas well doesn’t amount to a massive amount of water. Even if they are successful in making that argument with you, the next topic becomes flowback or brine. What do you do with the crap that comes back out of the ground?

Somewhere between 30% and 70% of the water used for hydro-fracing a gas well returns to the surface as flowback. In addition to the frac fluids added by the gas drilling companies, this water picks up other contaminants from deep in the Earth (~ 7,000 feet deep) with one of the most notable being salt.

These fluids contain sodium and calcium salts, barium, oil, strontium, iron, numerous heavy metals, soap, radiation and other components. This fluid combination becomes brine wastewater, and tanker trucks hauling it are labeled with a RESIDUAL WASTE placard. Treated brine is also sold for deicing and other applications that utilize calcium chloride, often being applied to roadways.
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A primer on gas well gold rush

From the Marcellus Shale to horizontal drilling

The River Reporter

Vol XXXIV, No 9, February 28, 2009

Narrowsburg, PA

NEW YORK & PENNSYLVANIA – Agents of corporate natural gas companies have been knocking on doors throughout the area.

These independent contractors are asking property owners to sign leases that will allow gas companies to explore for natural gas, which is believed to be beneath the local land mass in large deposits.

According to the experts, there are three main reasons why this is happening.

First, the cost of oil has been steadily rising over the last few years, reaching the unheard of price of $100 a barrel. By contrast, the cost of natural gas from a local well is much cheaper.

Second, geologists are telling the industry that there is evidence that very large deposits of gas are contained in a geological formation called the Marcellus Shale, which extends from Tennessee northward into central and northeastern Pennsylvania, including Wayne County, and the Southern Tier of New York State, including Sullivan County.

Third, new drilling techniques, principally developed by Halliburton, called horizontal drilling, can now recover gas deposits that were unrecoverable a short time ago.

No well permits have been given in Wayne County, but 14 wells have been created in Susquehanna County, according to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). Also, no permits have been issued in Sullivan County, where the process of gas exploration got a later start.

Marcellus Shale

SUNY professor Gary Lash and his partner, Penn State professor Terry Engelder, are studying what they believe could increase national gas reserves by upward of 20 to 25 percent.
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