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Gas industry promotes own fracking standards despite history of problems

southernstudies.org -- The oil and gas industry's lobbying organization held a workshop in North Carolina last week to promote its own standards as models for how the state might regulate the controversial gas drilling technique known as "fracking"

But nowhere in their presentations did officials with the American Petroleum Institute acknowledge the environmental damage done in other states despite the industry's standards. Nor did they mention the serious shortcomings documented in API's standards-setting program following the BP oil-spill disaster.

..an industry which is a master of denial

..lawmakers are considering whether to overturn the state's fracking ban

Exxon Mobil doesn't care about geology, it doesn't care about chemistry, it doesn't care about physics" he said. "Exxon cares about profit

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Submitted Feb 09, 2012 By: teafortwo

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PDQBlues Champion Author San Diego Posts:5,252 Points:1,088,225 Joined:Jan 2009	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 11:37:28 PM Ignore PDQBlues Report Abuse Well written, orphancarguyPE.
orphancarguyPE Champion Author PEI Posts:2,194 Points:422,430 Joined:Jan 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 10:09:32 AM Ignore orphancarguyPE Report Abuse Between the piffle and blather put out by the oil & gas industry shills and the flakiest 2% of the ecology movement there is some ground--perhaps--somewhere far away from these not-to-be-believed extremes, where the truth lies. Fracturing in the past didn't result in wholesale widespread contamination on a permanent basis of essential groundwater/deepwater aquifers. True....but current fracturing practices to extract oil/gas from tightly bound rock are vastly different in scope and density than the traditional fracking to get a water well, or to drill a traditional oil/gas well which is pressurized internally naturally, and trapped in a big pool under an impermiable rock shell or salt dome. Think of getting one needle for a flu shot, and then compare getting 1,784 needles all over your body at the same time to immunize you. Not the same situation at all, and the oil and gas industry is being disingenuous by saying all fracking is the same. It is except for the details, but as the saying goes, the devil IS in the details. Shale/rock fracking is such a different situation from traditional well drilling, that I'm uneasy about the consequences. After all, ground water aquifer contamination--like nuclear waste storage--is a lot closer to 'forever' than we might think. If the water took 5000 years--or even 100 years--to permeate rock down to deep water levels, just how long would toxic contaminents take to leach out again if they were artificially injected into these regions? Water (and chemical) injection does cause earthquakes. True...but it is a matter of scale in most places. It would not be going from 1.x or so (not detectable except with sensitive instruments) to devastating 6.x or 7.x earthquakes, generally speaking. Remember, most people don't realize that the Reichter scale is logorithmic, so a 6.6 quake is ten times as strong as 6.5 which is 100 times stronger than a 6.3 and so forth. Would a sudden increase in frequency and intensity of quakes cause actual harm? It all depends on the frequency and the increase in the intensity by ACTUAL measurement in the SPECIFIC area--there is no general answer. If you are going from regular 1.6 mini adjustments once a month to 1.9 once a week, or even 2.1 daily, you wouldn't notice any of this until you were informed by the media, likely. However, if you are living in an area with clay soil, especially Leda clay, severe results can happen with relatively minor quakes, so an increase in intensity or frequency can have consequences far different from other areas, and much more than you might expect. soil liquification, landslips and slides, road/pipe breakage, subsidence, can all happen. Injecting water is just like greasing something stuck and working at it with ever larger effort; it might start moving very slowly right away (extremely minor quakes) or it might build up and suddenly give way under a lot of pressure (larger quakes) [Edited by: orphancarguyPE at 2/9/2012 10:10:41 AM EST]
johntxx All-Star Author Texas Posts:708 Points:257,950 Joined:Aug 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 8:07:28 AM Ignore johntxx Report Abuse My sentiments exactly Tigercat88!
Eliano Champion Author Baltimore Posts:1,406 Points:276,475 Joined:Jun 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 7:42:40 AM Ignore Eliano Report Abuse here we go, standards..
pscamp Champion Author Ottawa Posts:1,176 Points:208,080 Joined:May 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 7:02:49 AM Ignore pscamp Report Abuse Come on Gas Industry. Just bribe them!!
Tigercat88 Champion Author North Carolina Posts:1,370 Points:256,765 Joined:Jul 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 7:00:16 AM Ignore Tigercat88 Report Abuse We spend too much time fighting the Enviro-Nuts. Lets get something DONE.
GasPriceHelp4u All-Star Author Dayton Posts:864 Points:209,675 Joined:Jul 2008	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 6:41:36 AM Ignore GasPriceHelp4u Report Abuse Gas industry needs to get their acts and facts together before lobbying for any more drilling...total overall impact environmentally!!!
daequitz Champion Author New Jersey Posts:4,490 Points:1,023,505 Joined:Jan 2007	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 6:39:25 AM Ignore daequitz Report Abuse Lawyers love this stuff - cha ching!
Batdan Rookie Author Atlanta Posts:66 Points:18,300 Joined:Apr 2007	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 6:00:31 AM Ignore Batdan Report Abuse Oh, yeah. Like the auto industry did so well with their own regulations and the oil industry has done since they started. Shortsightedness and desire for quick money always works out so well.
teafortwo Champion Author Washington Posts:17,045 Points:1,029,305 Joined:Feb 2009	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 5:53:55 AM Ignore teafortwo Report Abuse BIG OIL & GAS love us FROM THE ARTICLE: The main presenter was Jeff Brami, a retired Exxon Mobil geologist who now heads his own consulting firm in Texas. He discussed in detail a number of API's standards related to fracking, which API distributed to attendees in three-ring binders (in photo). He praised the standards because they are based on science and "don't deal with emotion." However, neither Brami nor any of the other presenters discussed any of the problems the gas industry has experienced despite API's standards, which include cases of water contamination near fracking sites in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Texas and Wyoming. Neither did they mention the Duke University study that found gas contamination of drinking-water wells near fracking operations, nor the Environmental Protection Agency draft study that concluded contaminated wells near a Wyoming gas drilling site "can be explained by hydraulic fracturing." But that's not altogether surprising, given that an industry which is a master of denial still denies these findings have anything to do with fracking. For example, the Hydraulic Fracturing Primer on API's website claims that there are "zero confirmed cases of groundwater contamination connected to the fracturing operations in one million wells hydraulically fractured over the last 60 years." BIG OIL & GAS love us
wrunner Champion Author Virginia Posts:2,545 Points:777,240 Joined:Dec 2009	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 5:46:45 AM Ignore wrunner Report Abuse Safety first.
epf Champion Author Grand Rapids Posts:4,487 Points:1,532,600 Joined:May 2004	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 5:41:13 AM Ignore epf Report Abuse Certainly a legitimate approach.
cdrrod Champion Author Wisconsin Posts:2,397 Points:435,720 Joined:Feb 2006	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 4:01:33 AM Ignore cdrrod Report Abuse "..an industry which is a master of denial." No truer words....
jrs4125 All-Star Author Indiana Posts:926 Points:231,645 Joined:Sep 2011	Message Posted: Feb 9, 2012 3:38:16 AM Ignore jrs4125 Report Abuse Let them set their own standards.......they need the money, this is an election year.