Ray,
Forty years ago when I was an analytical chemist,
I was joined for a short while by a geology
graduate, unable to get the job he really wanted
at the time. By and by he got a job in Sweden and
then in Australia where he joined an
international consultancy. Over the years he
specialized in hydrogeology and was a manager for
scores of projects in many countries -- looking
for aquifers for governments, devising water
protection schemes for mining companies,
designing irrigation systems and so forth. After
more than 30 years experience there can scarcely
be any sort of operation involving underground
water that he's unaware of. He's retired now but,
as probably one of the top hydrogeologists in the
world he is still asked to undertake projects,
though he only does the most interesting ones
now. About two months ago, while he was in
England he stayed with me for a couple of days.
Because I'd recently read a long report about
fracking I asked him whether there might be
problems with the technology. Though I can't
remember his exact words, in effect he said this:
"No problems I can think of. Any competent team
of engineers ought to be able to keep the
recycled waste water contained and treated at the
well head." As far as I'm concerned his opinion is good enough for me.
Keith
At 15:21 04/08/2011, you wrote:
Rules for the Game of America:
1. If you can get away with it without the
referee penalizing you then it didnt happen.
2. And if the game is over, and then it happens, you arent to blame.
Isnt this what we teach our kids in high school
sports? Winning and getting away with it is
everything? At the end of the game you stop
and go home and its OK what happened on the
field. Hasnt Wall Street and Congress been
playing a game of hamstring the referee so that
more can be gotten away with?
What religion teaches their children that this
is OK? All American religions have a 1/3 tax
break on their contributions which means every
citizen of America pays 1/3 of their budgets if
the contribution is tax deducted. The purpose
for that support is the belief that religious
instruction creates better morality.
Is that in fact what is happening? I know
this because the mining companies walked away
from my home in Picher, Oklahoma and thousands
of children in the Tri-state area were injured
from the heavy metal pollution as is the current
water table in the Rubidoux and Boone Aquifers
for those three states. Its a dirty little
secret about the migration of the pollution down
the rivers into Grand Lake and the rest of
Northeastern Oklahoma over the future. End
of the game so its over but it isnt and
wont be until its cleaned up. Its
progression is the classic definition of the
failure of a large cultural system.
Perhaps we should question the application of
game rules and game theory to all of the
parts of American life that it has polluted just
as the heavy metal pollution is slowly seeping
into the lives of every citizen of Northeastern
Oklahoma and the Citizens of Texas dependent
upon those aquifers to grow their crops, fight
the fires and feed their cities.
As a member of the lead poison club from
childhood I dont listen to preachers or
Senators who preach the sacredness of fetal
life, when its cheap to do so for political
purposes, while agreeing to the poisoning of
thousands of citizens and their children in the
name of jobs and industrial profit and then
allowing those companies to walk away without
setting the environment right for future
generations. Their arguments about political
and economic future generations ring hollow when
they will destroy the other for the present and
leave an infrastructure mess that is permanent when economics are not.
The problems here are both Artistic and
Scientific. We are incapable of large systems
design theories that would design a cultural
system that avoids these issues. Religion was
given the morality part of the system
thousands of years ago but today seems moribund
and in need of examination and a new systems
design for that section of the greater national
and international cultural systems.
In the huge national and international systems
that we find ourselves within today we suffer
from the under-conceptualization of the
past. We are trapped within the old economic
stories of the 18th and 19th centuries that
included large systems, capitalism, socialism,
communism, etc. but that were too narrowly
conceived intellectually to include the whole
range of human and planetary endeavor that we
find ourselves in at the moment.
Instead we get silly arguments across the seven
human systems about each ones invalidity and we
even define the other according, not to their
rules of the system, but to our observations of
their effects. Religion hates
Science. Economics hates the Arts and
Government and Science desires to be the only
perceptual tool available to humanity. Is it
any wonder that Islam did a right turn in the
12th century and banned math after 300 years of
blazing science? Can you imagine how
insufferable Al Jabbar must have been to his
religious counterparts? I can imagine the
arguments of today, at that time, until the
Mullahs resorted to political action and closed
the whole scientific arm of the society down
until the present. We still get the same
silly provincial arguments today from Dawkins
and Dyson on utube. Their comments are so
bereft of the inclusion of the whole of things
and of systems theory in general they seem like
John Foster Dulles designing the Cold
War. Groupthink maybe? It seems as
embarrassing to be a scientist these days as it
is often embarrassing being an artist given the
level of theoretical knowledge and
discussion. As for the self imposed ignorance
of the purpose of religion for so many
religionists when it comes to the whole, it can
only be described as war. The body of human
culture is at war with itself like a brain
damaged corpus collasum. Except, in this case,
its seven systems of the whole that are
suicidal believing their only salvation is if
they win and discipline the others. Back to game theory.
Where is the balance of the seven systems of all
cultures? 1. religion, 2. science, 3. art
and aesthetics, 4. public health, 5.
education, 6. government and law, and 7.
commerce. Even today we are incapable of
balancing our seven individual perceptual
systems. Is it any more surprising that we
would stupid about the seven cultural systems of
our societies? Instead we are continually
trapped in the Alfred Adler model of the
hyper-individual pursuit of power one over the
other that extends all the way to the seven
cultural systems and their relationships with
each other. Cherokees call this the dark path or the War Path.
The problems seem both individually and in large
systems to be pathological and that pathology is
based in a lack of personal and group awareness
of 1. Scale differences, 2. Cultural laws, 3.
A Meaning for existence at all and 4. a lack of
a genuine Quality standard for what constitutes
success individually and in the large cultural
systems as well as in their subsets. Is it any
wonder that the whole thing is danger of
collapse? For example: the answer to the
middle east doesnt lie in the marketplace and neither does our future.
It lies in the understanding of the large human
cultural systems, their foundations and
functions and how we sustain them for the
overall health of the mega human system that we
call life. But most of all it lies in the
ability to understand cultural paradox and the
meaning of balance between human cultural
systems that have differing rules and that must
be, like a nuclear power plant, always in
creative balance with each other lest the system we call Life disappear.
REH
NYTimes, August 3, 2011
A Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More
By
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/u/ian_urbina/index.html?inline=nyt-per>IAN
URBINA
For decades, oil and gas industry executives as
well as regulators have maintained that a
drilling technique known as hydraulic
fracturing, or fracking, that is used for most
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/business/energy-environment/natural-gas/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier>natural
gas wells has never contaminated underground drinking water.
The claim is based in part on a simple fact:
fracking, in which water and toxic chemicals are
injected at high pressure into the ground to
break up rocks and release the gas trapped
there, occurs thousands of feet below
drinking-water aquifers. Because of that
distance, the drilling chemicals pose no risk, industry officials have argued.
There have been over a million wells
hydraulically fractured in the history of the
industry, and there is not one, not one,
reported case of a freshwater aquifer having
ever been contaminated from hydraulic
fracturing. Not one, Rex W. Tillerson, the
chief executive of ExxonMobil, said last year at
a Congressional hearing on drilling.
It is a refrain that not only drilling
proponents, but also state and federal
lawmakers, even past and present
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/e/environmental_protection_agency/index.html?inline=nyt-org>Environmental
Protection Agency directors, have repeated often.
But there is in fact a documented case, and the
E.P.A. report that discussed it suggests there
may be more. Researchers, however, were unable
to investigate many suspected cases because
their details were sealed from the public when
energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.
Current and former E.P.A. officials say this
practice continues to prevent them from fully
assessing the risks of certain types of gas drilling.
I still dont understand why industry should be
allowed to hide problems when public safety is
at stake, said Carla Greathouse, the author of
the E.P.A. report that documents a case of
drinking water contamination from fracking. If
its so safe, let the public review all the cases.
Eric Wohlschlegel, a spokesman for the American
Petroleum Institute, dismissed the assertion
that sealed settlements have hidden problems
with gas drilling, and he added that countless
academic, federal and state investigators
conducted extensive research on groundwater
contamination issues, and have found that
drinking water contamination from fracking is highly improbable.
Settlements are sealed for a variety of
reasons, are common in litigation, and are done
at the request of both landowners and operators, Mr. Wohlschlegel said.
Still, the documented E.P.A. case, which has
gone largely unnoticed for decades, includes
evidence that many industry representatives were
aware of it and also fought the agencys
attempts to include other cases in the final study.
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p1/a27935>The
report is not recent it was published in 1987,
and the contamination was discovered in 1984.
Drilling technology and safeguards in well
design have improved significantly since then.
Nevertheless, the report does contradict what
has emerged as a kind of mantra in the industry and in the government.
The report concluded that hydraulic fracturing
fluids or gel used by the Kaiser Exploration and
Mining Company contaminated a well roughly 600
feet away on the property of James Parsons in
Jackson County, W.Va., referring to it as Mr. Parsons water well.
When fracturing the Kaiser gas well on Mr.
James Parsons property, fractures were created
allowing migration of fracture fluid from the
gas well to Mr. Parsons water well, according
to the
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p369/a27868>agencys
summary of the case. This fracture fluid, along
with natural gas was present in Mr. Parsons water, rendering it unusable.
Asked about the cause of the incident, Mr.
Wohlschlegel emphasized that the important
factor was that the driller and the regulator
had not known about the nearby aquifer. But in
comments submitted to the E.P.A. at the time
about the report, the petroleum institute
acknowledged that this was indeed a case of
drinking water contamination from fracking.
The damage here, the institute wrote,
referring to Mr. Parsons contaminated water
well, results from an accident or malfunction of the fracturing process.
Mr. Wohlschlegel cautioned however that the
comments provided at the time by the institute
were not based on its own research and therefore
it cannot be sure that other factors did not play a role.
In their report, E.P.A. officials also wrote
that Mr. Parsons case was highlighted as an
illustrative example of the hazards created by
this type of drilling, and that legal
settlements and nondisclosure agreements
prevented access to scientific documentation of other incidents.
This is typical practice, for instance, in
Texas,
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p139/a27992>the
report stated. In some cases, the records of
well-publicized damage incidents are almost entirely unavailable for review.
Bipartisan federal legislation before Congress
would require judges to consider public health
and safety before sealing court records or approving settlement agreements.
Dan Derkics, a 17-year veteran of the
environmental agency who oversaw research for
the report, said that hundreds of other cases of
drinking water contamination were found, many of
which looked from preliminary investigations to
have been caused by hydraulic fracturing like
the one from West Virginia. But they were unable to learn more about them.
I can assure you that the Jackson County case
was not unique, said Mr. Derkics, who retired
from the agency in 1994. That is why the drinking water concerns are real.
The New York Times was made aware of the 1987
E.P.A. report and some of its supporting
research materials by Ms. Greathouse, the
studys lead author. Other records pertaining to
the well were obtained from state archives or from the agencys library.
Some industry officials criticized the research
behind the report at the time. Their comments
were among the dozens submitted by the industry to the agency.
It is clear from reading the 228 alleged damage
cases that E.P.A.s contractor was careless in
its investigation and presentation of this
material,
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p661/a28559>a
letter from the American Petroleum Institute said.
The organization faulted a draft of the report
as failing to include enough comment from state
regulators and energy companies, and as
including cases that were poorly documented or
outside the scope of the project. In remarks to
the agency at the time, the petroleum institute
also emphasized that safeguards in West Virginia
had improved because of the incident, which the
organization referred to as an aberration and
said was potentially caused by a malfunction.
As described in the detail write-up, this is
not a normal result of fracturing, as it ruins
the productive capability of the wells, the institute said about the case.
A spokesman for ExxonMobil, Alan T. Jeffers, was
asked about Mr. Tillersons comments to Congress
in light of the documents relating to the West
Virginia case. He said that Mr. Tillerson, whose
company is the largest producer of natural gas
in the United States, was only echoing what
various state and federal regulators had said.
On the issue of sealed settlements, Mr. Jeffers
said that investigators and regulators could use
subpoenas if they really wanted access to the information.
Improvements in fracking have led to a boom in
natural gas drilling, enabling energy companies
to tap vast reserves of gas in previously
inaccessible shale formations deep underground.
Most drilling experts indeed have said that
contamination of drinking water with fracking
liquids is highly improbable. Even critics of
fracking tend to agree that if wells are
designed properly, drilling fluids should not
affect underground drinking water. Industry
officials also emphasize that all forms of
drilling involve some degree of risk. The
question, they say, is what represents an
acceptable level. Once chemicals contaminate
underground drinking-water sources, they are
very difficult to remove, according to federal
and industry studies. One E.P.A. official
involved with a current study being conducted by
the agency on the risks of fracking on drinking
water said the agency encountered continuing
challenges to get access to current cases because of legal settlements.
Our hands are tied, said the official, who
spoke anonymously because he is not authorized to speak to reporters.
Brendan Gilfillan, a spokesman for the agency,
said that it had indeed encountered these
barriers but that there were still enough alternate cases to study.
A 2004 study by the agency concluded that
hydraulic fracturing of one kind of natural gas
well coal-bed methane wells posed little or
no threat to underground drinking water
supplies. The study was later criticized by some
within the agency as being unscientific and unduly influenced by industry.
Asked about the 1987 E.P.A. report and the West
Virginia well, Mr. Gilfillan said the agency was reviewing them closely.
Instances of gas bubbling from fracked sites
into nearby water wells have been extensively
documented. The industry has also acknowledged
that fracking liquids can end up in aquifers
because of failures in the casing of wells,
spills that occur above ground or through other
factors. However, the drilling industry
emphasizes that no such cases exist in which the
fracking process itself caused drilling liquids to contaminate drinking water.
Both types of contamination can render the water
unusable. However, contamination from fracking
fluids is widely considered more worrisome
because the fluids can contain carcinogens like benzene.
The E.P.A.s 1987 report does not discuss the
specific pathway that the fracking fluid or gel
took to get to Mr. Parsons water well in West
Virginia or how those fluids moved from a depth
of roughly 4,200 feet, where the natural gas
well was fracked, to the water well, which was about 400 feet underground.
However,
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p674/a27583>state
records not included in the agencys final
report show the existence of four abandoned
wells nearby that were deeper than the fracked
gas well. State inspectors and drilling experts
suggested in interviews that the contamination
in Mr. Parsons well might have been caused when
fracking pushed chemicals from the gas well into
nearby abandoned wells where the fracking
pressure might have helped them migrate up toward the water well.
This
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p371/a27248>well
was fracked using gas and water, and with far
less pressure and water than is commonly used today.
The Environmental Working Group, a research and
advocacy organization, studied the Parsons case
extensively over the past year, interviewing
local residents and former state regulators as
well as reviewing state and federal documents.
The organization found at least four abandoned
gas wells within 1,700 feet of the gas well
Kaiser drilled on Mr. Parsons property and
roughly the same distance from the water well.
All of these abandoned wells had been plugged
with cement and other materials but had some of
their casing removed, which is common for such
wells, according to state records.
The evidence is pretty clear that the E.P.A.
got it right about this being a clear case of
drinking water contamination from fracking,
said Dusty Horwitt, a lawyer from the
<http://www.ewg.org/reports/cracks-in-the-facade>Environmental
Working Group who investigated the Parsons case.
The risk of
<http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/us/drilling-down-documents-7.html#document/p904/a27884>abandoned
wells serving as conduits for contamination is
one that the E.P.A. is currently researching as
part of its national study on fracking. Many
states lack complete records with the number or
location of these abandoned wells and they lack
the resources to ensure that abandoned and
active wells are inspected regularly.
A 1999 report by the Department of Energy said
there were about 2.5 million abandoned oil and
natural gas wells in the United States at the time.
Mr. Parsons said in a brief interview that he
could not comment on the case. Court records
indicate that in 1987 he reached a settlement
with the drilling company for an undisclosed amount.
Ms. Greathouse, the former environmental
research contractor and the lead author of the
1987 E.P.A. report, said that she and her
colleagues had found dozens of cases that she
said appeared to specifically involve drinking
water contamination related to fracking. But
they were unable to investigate those cases
further and get access to more documents because
of legal settlements. All but the Parsons case
were excluded from the E.P.A. study, she said,
because of pressure from industry
representatives who were members of an agency
working group overseeing the research.
The justification for excluding the cases was
usually that they lacked sufficient
documentation or involved a type of
contamination that was outside the scope of the study.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/08/
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