Richie Blaisdell, left, and Corey Capps of Century Oil work an oil rig off of Corkscrew Road. / Andrew West/news-press.com
The energy industry claims fracking is safe. Critics say otherwise.
“The record shows that there have been no incidents of contamination from hydraulic fracturing in over 1.2 million wells drilled over more than 60 years,” Richard Ranger, senior policy analyst for the American Petroleum Institute, commented in the institute’s blog, “Energy Tomorrow.”
But environmentalists are up in arms, and on Sept. 22, protestors in the U.S and other countries held a “GlobalFrackdown,” to say “no” to fracking.
“It’s a horrible idea,” Jon Ullman, Everglades coordinator for the Florida Sierra Club.
“Floridians have been very clear that they don’t want to expand oil drilling and they don’t want drilling in the Everglades. Oil and gas drilling have huge environmental consequences.”
In South Florida, the most likely target for fracking is the Lower Sunniland Trend, which lies more than two miles deep in an area stretching from Fort Myers to Miami. It also runs through part of the Big Cypress National Preserve, which is the western end of the Everglades ecosystem and provides 42 percent of water for the Everglades.
Overlying the Sunniland are aquifers at various depths, including the Tamiami, Sandstone, Mid-Hawthorne and Upper Floridan according to an email from Dee Ann Miller, a state Department of Environmental Protection spokeswoman. These aquifers provide fresh water and reach no deeper than 2,000 feet.
The Sandstone and Mid-Hawthorne aquifers also provide fresh water for Lee and Collier counties, according to information on the South Florida Water Management website.
A 2011 congressional report on fracking speaks of fears raised not only about chemical-laced fracking fluids but contamination from fracking waste water. The recovered fluid is stored in tanks or pits at the well site, recycled for future fracking, injected into underground storage wells or taken to waste treatment plants.
The fact fracking in South Florida would be done far beneath the aquifers near the surface means the danger is not from the process, said Jonathan B. Martin, a geology professor at the University of Florida . “The bigger question is whether toxic chemicals used could contaminate surface water,” he said. “The other is, how do you dispose of it?”
Trucks of fracking fluid are brought to the site, said Martin, who has worked at well sites where fracking was done. Leaks or spills can cause water contamination at the surface.
States and municipalities have taken action against fracking, including:
• A moratorium on fracking for natural gas since 2008 in New York. It may soon be lifted after a federal judge in September ruled a full environmental review did not have to be completed before draft fracking rules could take effect.
• Residents of cities in Colorado and Ohio have placed a charter amendment on the November ballot to stop fracking.
The congressional report says there are 750 chemicals companies can use in fracking, 29 of them carcinogens; regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act ; or listed as hazardous air pollutants under the Clean Air Act.
The investigation, by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, looked at fracking activities of 14 oil and gas service companies from 2005-2009.
The industry claims chemicals used in fracking make up only a tiny percent of the overall cocktail, which is 99 percent water 9.5 percent sand and .5 percent chemicals. However, the study found the 14 companies investigated used 780 million gallons of hydraulic fracturing products – not including water - between 2005-2009.
The EPA can’t regulate chemicals used in fracking injections unless diesel fuel is used because of an exemption to the Safe Drinking Water Act . Federal law has no public disclosure requirements for chemicals used in fracking . A site called FracFocus was started by the Ground Water Protection Council and Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission for the industry to report chemicals, but participation is voluntary.
Of at least 29 states that frack, only 14 have disclosure requirements, according to analysis by the Natural Resources Defense Council.