PRE-GAS WELL DRILLING WATER TESTING


Potentially economically viable Marcellus and Utica shale plays in Ohio.
BJAAM Environmental is answering the call of homeowners concerned about the quality of their drinking water in the current era of increased natural gas drilling and evolving extraction technologies. Reports of groundwater contamination have surfaced in several states across the U.S. Unfortunately, in the absence of any pre-drilling characterization of the drinking water, it is difficult if not impossible to prove that drilling operations have impacted the groundwater quality. Many of the compounds that are potential contaminants from the drilling process are naturally occurring in varying concentrations, and thus their mere presence following oil or natural gas drilling is not proof of contamination. This uncertainty has allowed drillers to win most lawsuits directed at them.

Legally Defensible Baseline

BJAAM recommends the development of a regular sampling regimen for property owners who depend on groundwater underlying areas where oil or natural gas drilling is ongoing, is imminent, or where a liklihood exists for future drilling operations. Drinking water wells located within a mile of drilling operations can potentially be impacted, and regular groundwater characterization establishes a baseline against which suspected contamination can be compared. It is important to note that a single groundwater sample is insufficient for characterization of pre-drilling groundwater quality. Groundwater chemistry fluctuates seasonally and varies over time. Thus, a single "snapshot" of the groundwater does not establish the range of chemicals and concentrations that are naturally-occurring in the area, and thus this evidence could be easily dismissed in any charge of wrongdoing on the part of the drilling company. BJAAM monitors a suite of chemicals that includes cations, anions, hydrocarbons, and heavy metals commonly found in the drilling of oil and natural gas wells.

Much of Ohio is of interest for natural gas drilling due to the presence of two gas-rich shale deposits. Spanning much of New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio is the Marcellus Shale, and current estimates suggest that the Marcellus could yield enough natural gas to meet U.S. demands for more than 40 years. Thousands of traditional vertical wells have been extracting the most readily-accessed gas for years, but the growing emphasis on achieving energy independence has renewed the interest in capturing the less-explored deposits of this vast reservoir. Lying several thousand feet below the Marcellus is the Utica Shale, an oil and natural gas source that is just beginning to be explored, but which may ultimately prove even larger than the Marcellus. Both the Marcellus and Utica formations are of interest in Eastern Ohio, where increasing numbers of property owners are being approached for land leases. But in Ohio, the Utica is the more expansive of the two formations, with economically viable deposits beneath the eastern half of the state, and with thicknesses reaching nearly 300 feet in some areas. The Marcellus, meanwhile, approaches 100 feet thick only in extreme southeastern Ohio.

Please contact us for more information about how BJAAM Environmental can help you establish a legally defensible baseline for your drinking water before drilling operations arrive in your neighborhood.

SPOTLIGHT ON: HORIZONTAL DRILLING AND HYDRAULIC FRACTURING


Typical natural gas drilling operation. The average surface footprint of the operation is just a few acres, but horizontal drilling and fracking allows the capture of gas from a mile or more around the central well.

Traditionally, oil and gas exploration has focused on accessing concentrated pockets of fossil fuels using vertical wells drilled directly into the reservoir. This technique often left behind large volumes of hydrocarbons in areas where vertical wells could not be installed, or where lesser volumes of hydrocarbons were available, making the prospective wells less cost-efficient. Recent advances in technology allow for the recovery of much greater volumes of hydrocarbons through the installation of horizontal wells accompanied by a process known as hydraulic fracturing ("fracking"). A horizontal well starts as a traditional vertical well, but gradually bends 90 degrees into the hydrocarbon-producing layer. The horizontal bore often extends a mile or more into the surrounding rock. Once the horizontal bore is completed, a liquid mixture dominantly composed of sand and water (the "fracking fluid") is pumped into the well at pressures as high as ten thousand pounds per square inch. This extreme pressure hydraulically fractures the surrounding rock, and the sand component of the fracking fluid serves to prop open the fractures after the initial fracturing process. Soon, hydrocarbons begin to flow into the well. As many as 12 horizontal bores can be drilled from one central well location over a period of several years. It is estimated that a horizontal well in the Appalachian Basin may yield 4 billion cubic feet of natural gas in its lifetime, while the average vertical well produces just 200 to 500 million cubic feet.

New technology does not come without new environmental concerns. While the vast majority of the fracking fluid is composed of water and sand (estimates range between 98 and 99.5 percent), the remaining portion is a hodgepodge of chemicals introduced to the mixture for roles such as reducing friction, dissolving minerals, inhibiting bacterial growth, and preventing corrosion of the well casing. The precise recipe varies across the industry, but some chemicals known to be present in many fracking fluids include formaldehyde, methanol, hydrochloric acid, ammonium chloride, and ethylene glycol. These chemicals and nearly forty others were recently determined to, collectively, pose risk of damage to the lungs, liver, kidneys, blood, and brain. Although representing as little as 0.5 percent of the fracking fluid, it is notable that a million or more gallons of fracking fluid are introduced for each 1,000-foot section of the horizontal bore, meaning that 5,000 gallons of chemicals are introduced into the ground. For an average well with 10 horizontal bores, each a mile long, 50 million gallons of freshwater would be accompanied by 250,000 gallons of chemicals to complete the fracking process.

Where fracking has been conducted for years, isolated reports have surfaced of contaminated air and drinking water. Advocates of the industry argue that fracking takes place at depths thousands of feet below drinking water aquifers, and geologists affirm that it is highly unlikely that the chemicals could migrate upward to affect groundwater. What isn't certain, though, is the disposition of the "flowback fluid". An estimated 40% of the fracking mixture is ultimately forced back to the surface due to subterranean reservoir pressure, and along the way it picks up compounds from the fractured shale such as heavy metals and some naturally occurring radioactive materials ("NORM"; e.g., radium 226 and radium 228). Recent studies by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation revealed that flowback fluids from the Marcellus Shale contained levels of radium 226 many thousand times the safe level for drinking water. This fluid is stored at the drilling site either in tanks or a holding pond, but some experts believe that it is capable of leaking around the wellead during its ascent. Insufficiently-lined holding ponds are also potential sources of contamination. In response, state and federal regulators are studying the issue in order to establish appropriate safeguards for the industry.