Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, injects high
pressure volumes of water, sand and chemicals into existing wells
to unlock natural gas and oil. The technique essentially
fractures the rock to get to the otherwise unreachable deposits.
[T[o strike oil in America, you need water. Plenty of
it. Today, the insatiable search for oil and gas has
become the latest threat to the country’s endangered aquifers,
a critical national resource that is already being drained
at alarming rates by industrial farming and cities in
search of drinking water. The amount of water consumed by
the oil industry, revealed in a New York Times investigation,
has soared to record levels. … And now, fracking companies
are the ones scrambling for water. A 2016 Ceres
report found that nearly 60 percent of the 110,000 wells
fracked between 2011 and 2016 were in regions with high or
extremely high water stress, including basins in Texas,
Colorado, Oklahoma, and California.
The Uinta Basin in northeastern Utah is one of the richest oil
shale deposits in the country. It is estimated to hold more
proven reserves than all of Saudi Arabia. Enefit, an Estonian
company, was the latest in a long line of firms that hoped to
tap it. It’s also the latest to see such plans collapse — but
perhaps not yet for good. The company has lost access to the
water it would need to unearth the petroleum and relinquished a
federal lease that allowed research and exploration on the
land. The two moves, made late last month, appear to signal the
end of Enefit’s plans to mine shale oil in the Uinta
Basin.
California may put oil companies on the financial hook to plug
and clean aging oil fields after lawmakers approved a measure
meant to prevent taxpayers from footing the bill for orphaned
wells. In a year that has been relatively quiet for climate
legislation, the passage of Assembly Bill 1167 on Thursday
night marked a win for environmentalists and communities mainly
around Los Angeles and the San Joaquin Valley facing methane
leaks from aging oil wells that require costly cleanup.
… Orphaned wells, as they’re called, risk harmful leaks
of oil, polluted water and methane often near residential
areas. According to the Geologic Energy Management Division,
known as CalGEM, California has plugged about 1,400 wells since
1977 at a cost of $29.5 million.
Coal mining depleted areas of a critical aquifer in the Black
Mesa region of the Navajo Nation, but a federal agency didn’t
consider the losses environmentally damaging, researchers
concluded in a new study of the aquifer in northern Arizona.
The researchers detailed what they said were failures by the
federal Office of Surface Mining Reclamation and Enforcement to
hold the Peabody mining company responsible for the
environmental effects of coal mining in the Black Mesa area.
The findings of the study, conducted by the Institutes for
Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, didn’t surprise Nicole
Horseherder, executive director of Tó Nizhóní Ání, a group
working to protect Black Mesa water, among other things.
Hydraulic fracturing, commonly known as fracking, injects high
pressure volumes of water, sand and chemicals into existing wells
to unlock natural gas and oil. The technique essentially
fractures the rock to get to the otherwise unreachable deposits.
This printed issue of Western Water looks at hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” in California. Much of the information
in the article was presented at a conference hosted by the
Groundwater Resources Association of California.
It may surprise some people to know that California is the fourth
largest producer of crude oil in the United States and has a long
history of oil exploration. Since the 1860s, wells in Kern County
and Southern California have been tapped for more than 500,000
barrels of oil each day.
