Almost
half (47%) of all U.S. wells are being developed in regions with high
to extremely high water stress. This means that more than 80 percent of
the annual available water is already allocated to municipal, industrial
and agricultural users in these regions. (Source: Ceres)The
irony of fracking: It destroys the natural resource it needs most. The
tragedy for those living nearby fracking operations: That natural
resource is the fresh—and increasingly scarce—water supply on which
they, too, depend.
And not only does fracking—or hydraulic
fracturing—demand enormous amounts of fresh water no matter where it
takes places, a troubling new study released Wednesday found that a
majority of places where the controversial drilling technique is most
prevalent are the same regions where less and less water is available.
Overlay
the regions where most of the fracking is being done in North American
with the places experiencing the most troubling and persistent water
resource problems and the resulting picture becomes an alarm bell as
politicians and the fossil fuel industry continue to push fracking
expansion as the savior for the U.S. and Canada's energy woes.
According to the report,
Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers
(pdf), produced by the non-profit Ceres investor network, much of the
oil and gas fracking activity in both the U.S. and Canada is happening
in "arid, water stressed regions, creating significant long-term water
sourcing risks" that will strongly and negatively impact the local
ecosystem, communities, and people living nearby.
“Hydraulic
fracturing is increasing competitive pressures for water in some of the
country’s most water-stressed and drought-ridden regions,” said Ceres
President Mindy Lubber, in announcing Hydraulic Fracturing and Water
Stress: Water Demand by the Numbers. “Barring stiffer water-use
regulations and improved on-the-ground practices, the industry’s water
needs in many regions are on a collision course with other water users,
especially agriculture and municipal water use."
Richard Heinberg, senior fellow of the California-based Post Carbon Institute and author of a
recent book
on the "false promise" of the fracking industry, says the irony of the
study's findings "would be delicious if it weren't so terrifying."
"Nationally,"
according to Heinberg, "only about 50 percent of fracking wastewater is
recycled. Billions of gallons of freshwater are still taken from
rivers, streams, and wells annually for this purpose, and—after being
irremediably polluted—this water usually ends up being injected into
deep disposal wells. That means it is no longer available to the
hydrological cycle that sustains all terrestrial life."
Click
here to look at Ceres' interactive map on fracking and water use.
The
study drew on industry data detailing water usage from from 39,294 oil
and gas wells from January 2011 through May 2013 and compared that
information with "water stress indicator maps" developed by the World
Resources Institute (WRI).
What it found:
Over
55 percent of the wells hydraulically fractured were in areas
experiencing drought and 36 percent overlay regions with significant
groundwater depletion – key among those, California which is in the
midst of a historic drought and Texas, which has the highest
concentration of shale energy development and hydraulic fracturing
activity in the U.S.
Specifically:
In
Texas, which includes the rapidly developing Eagle Ford and Permian
Basin shale plays, more than half (52 percent) of the wells were in high
or extreme high water stress areas. In Colorado and California, 97 and
96 percent of the wells, respectively, were in regions with high or
extremely high water stress. Nearly comparable trends were also shown in
New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Among hundreds of hydraulic
fracturing companies whose water use was evaluated, those with the
highest exposure to water sourcing risk are Anadarako (APC), Encana
(ECA), Pioneer (PXD) and Apache (APA). Most of the wells being developed
by each of these companies are in regions of high or extreme water
stress. The top three service providers, Halliburton, (HAL) Schlumberger
(SLB) and Baker Hughes (BHI), handled about half of the water used for
hydraulic fracturing nationally and also face water sourcing risks.
Although
water use for hydraulic fracturing is often less than two percent of
state water demands, the impacts can be large at the local level,
sometimes exceeding the water used by all of the residents in a county.
"It's a wake-up call," Professor James Famiglietti, a hydrologist at the University of California, Irvine,
told the
Guardian.
"We understand as a country that we need more energy but it is time to
have a conversation about what impacts there are, and do our best to try
to minimise any damage."
The irony of the latest findings, explained Heinberg in an email to
Common Dreams,
is based on the fact that "much of the fracking boom is centered in the
western United States—Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado, and California—which
just happens to be drying up, likely as a result of climate change. And
that climate change, in turn, is happening because we're burning fossil
fuels like oil and natural gas."
Heinberg observed that the Ceres
report is largely written from the standpoint of the oil and gas
companies—using much of their data—and directed at those who may be
invested or would like to invest in the continuation or proliferation of
the industry. However, he indicated, detailing the increasing
difficulties the industry and its investors are likely to experience in
sourcing water for their operations is still valuable for those opposed
to fracking.
"In California, where I live," he said, "we're
experiencing a 500-year drought. The grape-wine industry here in Sonoma
County is facing disaster. Farmers in the Central Valley are weighing
whether to plant at all this year. The fact that California's Democratic
governor [Jerry Brown] wants to spend what little water we have on
fracking—which will only make our climate problems worse—makes the
report frighteningly relevant."
_____________________________________
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License.
.....
Nearly
half of the wells hydraulically fractured (indicated by black dots) in
the United States are located in areas of high or extremely high water
stress (shown in red and dark red). Graphic courtesy of Ceres
Even as concerns arise about the threats
hydraulic fracturing poses to
water quality and
human health,
a new study released yesterday finds that the water demands of the
“fracking” process are adding considerably to localized water depletion,
especially in parts of Texas, Colorado, and California.
Nearly half of the fracking wells in operation since 2011 are located
in regions with high or extremely high water stress, according to
the report by
Ceres, a non-profit organization that works with investors and businesses to promote more sustainable practices.
Competition for water between cities, farms, and industries is
already tight in those water-stressed areas, posing risks of supply
disruptions during times of drought. Rivers and wetlands often suffer
from insufficient flows in such areas, and depletion of groundwater is
common.
While agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of water in the
western states, “fracking is the latest party to come to the table,”
said Monika Freyman, author of the report and senior manager in Ceres’s
water program, during a teleconference. In some ways it’s “the straw
that’s breaking the camel’s back.”
Hydraulic fracturing is the process of blasting water mixed with sand
and chemicals deep underground at high pressure so as to fracture shale
rock and release the oil and gas it holds. Combined with the technique
of horizontal drilling, it has made previously inaccessible fossil fuel
reserves economical to tap, and fracking operations have spread rapidly
across the country and in many parts of the world.
Read More Here
.....
newson6.com
By Juan A. Lozano and Nomaan Merchant
| Monday, Mar 24, 2014 | Updated 8:49 PM CDT
NBC 5