Too long to reproduce in full, but full of facts you never wanted to
know. This rivals fracking fears, easily.
(Once again, we subsidize so they can kill the planet.)
Natalia
http://www.propublica.org/article/injection-wells-the-poison-beneath-us
Injection Wells: The Poison Beneath Us
Over the past several decades, U.S. industries have injected more than
30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad
expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground.
No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the
rivers or onto the soil. But until recently, scientists and
environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath
the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia.
There are growing signs they were mistaken.
Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells
drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly
leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface
or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant
portion of the nation's drinking water.
In 2010, contaminants from such a well bubbled up in a west Los Angeles
dog park. Within the past three years, similar fountains of oil and gas
drilling waste have appeared in Oklahoma and Louisiana. In South
Florida, 20 of the nation's most stringently regulated disposal wells
failed in the early 1990s, releasing partly treated sewage into aquifers
that may one day be needed to supply Miami's drinking water.
There are more than 680,000 underground waste and injection
<http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/371154-uic-well-inventory-2010-2>
wells nationwide, more than 150,000 of which shoot industrial fluids
thousands of feet below the surface. Scientists and federal regulators
acknowledge they do not know how many of the sites are leaking.
Federal officials and many geologists insist that the risks posed by all
this dumping are minimal. Accidents are uncommon, they say, and
groundwater reserves --- from which most Americans get their drinking
water --- remain safe and far exceed any plausible threat posed by
injecting toxic chemicals into the ground.
But in interviews, several key experts acknowledged that the idea that
injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality,
and on oversight that doesn't always work.
"In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our
groundwater is polluted," said Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for
25 years as a technical expert with the EPA's underground injection
program in Washington. "A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot
of people may die."
The boom in oil and natural gas drilling is deepening the uncertainties,
geologists acknowledge. Drilling produces copious amounts of waste,
burdening regulators and demanding hundreds of additional disposal
wells. Those wells --- more holes punched in the ground --- are changing
the earth's geology, adding man-made fractures that allow water and
waste to flow more freely.
"There is no certainty at all in any of this, and whoever tells you the
opposite is not telling you the truth," said Stefan Finsterle, a leading
hydrogeologist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who specializes
in understanding the properties of rock layers and modeling how fluid
flows through them. "You have changed the system with pressure and
temperature and fracturing, so you don't know how it will behave."
A ProPublica review of well records, case histories and government
summaries of more than 220,000 well inspections found that structural
failures inside injection wells are routine. From late 2007 to late
2010, one well integrity violation was issued for every six deep
injection wells examined --- more than 17,000 violations nationally.
More than 7,000 wells showed signs that their walls were leaking.
Records also show wells are frequently operated in violation of safety
regulations and under conditions that greatly increase the risk of fluid
leakage and the threat of water contamination.
Structurally, a disposal well is the same as an oil or gas well.
<http://water.epa.gov/type/groundwater/uic/wells_class1.cfm#animation>
Tubes of concrete and steel extend anywhere from a few hundred feet to
two miles into the earth. At the bottom, the well opens into a natural
rock formation. There is no container. Waste simply seeps out, filling
tiny spaces left between the grains in the rock like the gaps between
stacked marbles.
Many scientists and regulators say the alternatives to the injection
process --- burning waste, treating wastewater, recycling, or disposing
of waste on the surface --- are far more expensive or bring additional
environmental risks.
Subterranean waste disposal, they point out, is a cornerstone of the
nation's economy, relied on by the pharmaceutical, agricultural and
chemical industries. It's also critical to a future less dependent on
foreign oil: Hydraulic fracturing, "clean coal" technologies, nuclear
fuel production and carbon storage (the keystone of the strategy to
address climate change) all count on pushing waste into rock formations
below the earth's surface.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which has primary regulatory
authority over the nation's injection wells, would not discuss specific
well failures identified by ProPublica or make staffers available for
interviews. The agency also declined to answer many questions in
writing, though it sent responses to several. Its director for the
Drinking Water Protection Division, Ann Codrington, sent a statement to
ProPublica defending the injection program's effectiveness.
(snip)
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