Environmental Considerations Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing Operations: Adjusting to the Shale Revolution in a Green World

By James A. Jacobs and Stephen M. Testa

A guide to environmental and communication issues related to fracking and the best approach to protect communities 

Environmental Considerations Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing Operations offers a much-needed resource that explores the complex challenges of fracking by providing an understanding of the environmental and communication issues that are inherent with hydraulic fracturing. The book balances the current scientific knowledge with the uncertainty and risks associated with hydraulic fracking. In addition, the authors offer targeted approaches for helping to keep communities safe.

The authors include an overview of the historical development of hydraulic fracturing and the technology currently employed. The book also explores the risk, prevention, and mitigation factors that are associated with fracturing. The authors also include legal cases, regulatory issues, and data on the cost of recovery. The volume presents audit checklists for gathering critical information and documentation to support the reliability of the current environmental conditions related to fracking operations and the impact fracking can have on a community. This vital resource:

• Contains the technical information and mitigation recommendations for safety and environmental issues related to hydraulic fracturing
• Offers an historical overview of conventional and unconventional oil and gas drilling
• Explains the geologic and technical issues associated with fracking of tight sand and shale formulations
• Presents numerous case studies from the United States EPA and other agencies
• Discusses issues of co-produced waste water and induced seismicity from the injection of wastewater

Written for environmental scientists, geologists, engineers, regulators, city planners, attorneys, foresters, wildlife biologists, and others, Environmental Considerations Associated with Hydraulic Fracturing Operations offers a comprehensive resource to the complex environmental and communication issues related to fracking.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wiley
• Release date: Apr 5, 2019
• ISBN: 9781119336112

Book preview

List of Figures

List of Tables

Tables in Appendix I

Foreword

Oil and gas literally fuels and lubricates the machines of industrial society, and the shale revolution of the mid‐2000s has and will continue to transform the nation and global economy in significant ways for decades. Carbon‐based unconventional fossil fuels such as those liberated from tight oil sands or shale gas source rocks combine horizontal drilling with specialized production enhancement chemicals that are injected under high pressure using high‐volume hydraulic fracture (HVHF) stimulation techniques.

Stimulation of oil and gas wells and reservoirs via fracturing to enhance production has a long history commencing in the early to mid‐1800s. With the first gas well in 1825 in the Marcellus Shale of Devonian age in the village of Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, and the first successfully drilled oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake in 1859, those involved in the exploration and extraction of oil and gas have developed innovative and ingenious ways of enhancing production over the decades. Within a few years, artificial fracturing was used in Pennsylvania to coax waxier crude oil out of the tight reservoir rocks. By the late 1940s, what we recognize today as hydraulic fracturing was tested with promising results in a well a few miles east of Duncan, Oklahoma, in the giant Hugoton gas field in Kansas. According to some estimates, by 1988, prior to the modern shale gas boom, the hydraulic fracturing process had been used in oil and gas fields on nearly one million wells. If the technology has been around and used for decades, then why all the controversy and environmental concern? The answer is one of scale. Combined with the development of horizontal drilling techniques, injection strategies, and associated techniques and developments, well stimulation would accelerate as if on steroids to what we refer to today as high‐volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF). Huge volumes of water would be needed for injection, and then the liquid recovered managed in some manner, commonly reinjected elsewhere. The end result is a number of environmental issues being raised and allegations of environmental harm, surface water and groundwater contamination, and other environmental concerns. If that was not enough in an anti‐fossil fuel environment, rejection of associated fluids via reinjection was being alleged as the cause for earthquakes in certain parts of the country.

The topic is controversial. The controversy regarding hydraulic fracture stimulation, commonly called fracking, reminds us that no series of advances in technologies are entirely positive or negative in their impacts. In the United States there is an historic split between surface rights owners of the real estate and the mineral rights owners of the subsurface resource. For every operator, landowner, and investor reaping the financial rewards of using the advanced technologies, there are countless neighbors inconvenienced by industrial processes taking place so close to their houses and concerned about possible health and environmental impacts. The information that has been published in a variety of sources and venues is voluminous. That there are many unanswered questions and uncertainties about this industrial process is the reason we evaluated thousands of pages of reports and hundreds of books and publications to develop a guide for those most affected – landowners, operators, neighbors, regulators, workers, and others interested in a better understanding of the processes and ways to protect the environment.

Our intention was to review the data and literature and present our findings such that a county commissioner or supervisor could understand some of the technical tools used to investigate allegations of fugitive gas emissions or an attorney representing a landowner might better understand sub‐slab vapor sampling methods or air screening equipment. The book includes tables and check lists so that an environmental group can verify that all the appropriate documents have been submitted to the appropriate agencies or the worker or owner at a silica sand mine can read an overview of safety practices to minimize particulate dust exposure. The book was also designed so students, regulators, environmental or resource geologist, and engineers can find a summary of the topics. It was also written so that an insurance carrier providing coverage for the operators, infrastructure, facilities in the area of unconventional oil and gas drilling and production, pipelines or refining, and the residences and communities nearby has an understanding of the HVHF processes, exposure risks, and environmental uncertainties. Mitigation measures are included for all of the impacted resources and issues, and a site‐specific impact analysis methodology is included in appendices to assist those interested in the nearby impacts that are occurring on‐site or a short distance from homes or businesses.

What follows in this book is a rational discussion of the environmental issues and impacts associated with the exploration, extraction, and production of unconventional resources via HVHF technology. The chapters to follow also serves as a handbook for communicating, documenting, sampling, and investigating environmental concerns relating to HVHF. In this book, the benefits of HVHF and the importance of making the US energy independent by drilling domestic energy resources and providing a lower carbon footprint fuel are weighed against the potential environmental impacts to nearby residents and the ecosystem. In today's world, it is easy to criticize the oil and gas industry despite all the benefits this industry has provided in many aspects of our society. With a large investment in safety and environmental protection, the oil and gas industry provides increased economic development and employment while enriching their shareholders. With the access to domestic unconventional oil and natural gas resources, the industry has the responsibility to protect human health and the environment per their operating permits and within all safety and environmental laws and regulations. This book was developed as a practical guide to help understand and mitigate adverse environmental impact by focusing on the side effects and unintended consequences of unconventional resource extraction and to facilitate the communication and education about the various processes, environmental aspects, safety issues, and risks involved with producing, transporting, storing, and refining unconventional hydrocarbon resources.

James A. Jacobs

Pt. Richmond, CA, USA

Stephen M. Testa

Mokelumne Hill, CA, USA

Acknowledgments

We are indebted to all those colleagues who have answered our numerous questions and provided insight and guidance as we aimed to understand and present a comprehensive assessment of environmental impacts and risks associated with the process we referred to simply as fracking. We thank Don Clarke who provided certain images that were used in the preparation of this book. A special acknowledgement to the Petroleum History Institute who provided permission to republish the majority of an article prepared for their journal Oil‐Industry History pertaining to the historical development of well stimulation. Lydia Testa assisted in preparation of the Table of Contents and certain tables contained in the manuscript.

James Jacobs – My interest in artificial fracturing goes back to my background as an oil geologist in the early 1980s. At that time, I met Thomas Chambers Roberts, who was not only a successful oil explorer in his own right in Oklahoma in the 1920s but also a grandson of Walter Brooke Roberts, who with his brother, Edward A.L. Roberts, developed the Roberts Torpedo, one of the first artificial fracturing techniques used in the oil and gas industry in Titusville, Pennsylvania. T.C. Roberts shared his love of the oil patch and showed me dozens of glass plates of early Titusville oil operations. I also thank him and his family, including Edward Thomas Roberts, great grandson of W. B. Roberts and Eric C.W. Dunn, great‐great grandson of W.B. Roberts for sharing stories and photos of the fracturing techniques and the early days of the oil industry in Titusville. I also want to thank Carl and Nancy Harvatine of Harvatine Farms (Thompson, Pennsylvania) located in the Marcellus Shale region. The Harvatines were generous to host me and my son Elliott for a few days in August 2015 at their farm. They arranged local tours around this scenic northeast Pennsylvania area, an area with some of the earliest Marcellus Shale gas production, to see the wells and other farms and operations associated with fracking. Their daughter, Laura Harvatine, arranged for the visit and her son, Justin, showed us around the area as well. A special thanks goes to Olivia Jacobs for final proof reading.

Stephen Testa – My interest in this topic emerged as a historian in the development of oil and gas since its infancy and notably, in the development of oil and gas resources in California. My knowledge base expanded significantly when I served as president of the Energy Minerals Division of the American Association of Geologists in 2010–2011, and I cannot thank the various individuals enough for their patience and sharing of their knowledge in regard to unconventional and alternative resources.

Lastly, our appreciation goes out to the individuals at Wiley Publishers, notably Wiley Associate Editor Michael Leventhal, Project Editor Beryl Mesiadhas and Production Editor Gayathree Sekar who exhibited extraordinary patience and assistance in the preparation of this book. The authors are solely responsible for any shortcomings and errors.

1

Introduction

1.1 Energy and the Shale Revolution

As a nation, and since the 1970s, energy independence has been more of a dream than a reality as we have witnessed the ups and downs of the oil and gas industry over the past several decades. The history of the oil and gas industry is that of ups and downs, but also one of technological innovation and ingenuity since the first well for gas was drilled in 1825 in the Marcellus Shale of Devonian age in the village of Fredonia, Chautauqua County, New York, and the first successfully drilled oil well near Titusville, Pennsylvania, by Edwin Drake in 1859. In the twenty‐first century, technological advances continue to drive the energy landscape and have significant benefit beyond just energy policy. Our nation’s independence and reemergence as an energy leader largely reflects technological advances in the extraction of oil and natural gas from shale formations.

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the oil and gas industry has been vital to our energy needs. This industry and the infrastructure that supports it employ more people than any other industry. As of 2013, the entire natural gas and oil industry supported 9.2 million US jobs, accounted for 7.7% of the US economy, and delivered $86 million per day in revenue to the federal government. Between 2007 and the end of 2012, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) in 2013 reported that total US private sector employment increased by more than one million jobs, or about a 1% increase, whereas employment within the oil and natural gas industry increased by more than 162 000 jobs, or about a 40% increase (Figure 1.1). However, employment in oil and natural gas extraction and support activities continued declining from levels reached in the fall of 2014–2011 levels, just before the onset of falling oil prices (EIA 2016).

Graph illustrating the percent change in employment, oil, and natural gas industry and all private sector employment percent change from 2007, depicted by 4 intersecting fluctuating curves.

Figure 1.1 From the start of 2007 through the end of 2012, total US private sector employment increased by more than one million jobs, about 1%. Over the same period, the oil and natural gas industry increased by more than 162 000 jobs, a 40% increase (USEIA 2013).

Currently, there are 27 states that account for 99.9% of the oil and natural gas production in the United States, with about 33 states reporting oil or gas production. What is interesting about this however is that as of 2015 there were no <25 significant plays, and 6 prospective plays, noted in the conterminous United States (Figure 1.2). These shale plays extend from east coast to west coast and from the northern to southern extent of the country. What makes these shale plays of interest is a result of two primary technological advances: horizontal drilling and well stimulation techniques with the most innovative being hydraulic fracturing or fracking.

Map of the United States with shaded areas representing current shale plays, prospective shale plays, and basins and lines representing shallowest/youngest, mid-depth/mid-age, and deepest/oldest.

Figure 1.2 Oil–gas basins and shale gas plays in the lower United States (API 2015).

It was not that long ago that the term fracking became part of our everyday consciousness. What Daniel Yergin (2011) in his book The Quest calls the Shale Gale, a sudden surge in the domestic production of US natural gas was observed for 2007 and into 2008. The output of natural gas would continue to increase, and with the increase in supply, cost declined. This phenomenon was also referred to as a shale revolution – revolution of productivity and abundance as reflected in extraordinary natural gas production growth, lower natural gas prices, and a reduction in natural gas imports. Shale gas that made up only about 1% of the natural gas supply in 2000 would by 2011 make up 25%. Yergin would go on to state: By the beginning of this decade, the rapidity and sheer scale of the shale breakthrough – and its effect on markets – qualified it as the most significant innovation in energy so far since the start of the twenty‐first century. It is estimated that hydraulic fracturing will eventually account for nearly 70% of natural gas development in North America. Furthermore, the US EIA in 2015 reported that dry natural gas production in the United States increased by 35% from 2005 to 2013 resulting largely from the development of shale gas resources (including natural gas from tight oil formations) in the lower 48 states. The EIA in 2015 summarized:

Growth in US energy production, led by crude and natural gas, and only modest growth in demand reduce US reliance on imported energy supplies.

A strong growth in domestic crude oil production from tight formations will lead to a decline in net petroleum imports and growth in net petroleum product exports in all Annual Energy Outlook cases.

In 2017, the United States will transition from being a modest net importer of natural gas to a net exporter.

It is estimated that the Unites States now has 200 years’ worth of natural gas and is predicted to be the largest oil producer in the world by the end of the decade, thanks to fracking. By 1988, hydraulic fracturing had been successfully applied nearly one million times, and as of today, more than 2.5 million hydraulic fracturings have occurred worldwide. The public has also benefited with over 600 trillion cubic feet of natural gas that has been provided to the American consumer as a result of this technology. Today, hydraulic fracturing is used for over 60%