Water concerns a focus of report
Gas drilling opponents looked at growth and its effects from 2005 to 2012
Updated 10:45 am, Friday, October 4, 2013
A national environmental group opposed to natural gas hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking, released a report Thursday that painted what it called an ugly picture of impacts in 17 states where fracking is being done.
Released on the steps of the Capitol, the report from Environment America, based in Washington, D.C., is the latest salvo in a war of studies, reports and statements either promoting or condemning fracking, as New York state continues to weigh whether to allow the controversial drilling technique.
The Environment America study looked at the explosive growth in fracking between 2005 and 2012, finding that:
• 82,000 wells covering about 360,000 acres have been drilled nationwide. More than 6,600 wells are in neighboring Pennsylvania; Texas leads the nation with 33,700 wells, more than a third of which were added in 2012.
• Drillers used 250 billion gallons of water, which is pumped deep underground to break up gas-bearing rock formations. In 2012 alone, about 280 billion gallons of contaminated water returned up from wells, requiring storage and disposal. Figures for returning water are higher than for water pumped in originally because underground water also came to the surface due to well pressure.
• About 2 billion gallons of fracking chemicals, some toxic, have been pumped underground.
• Wells released about 450,000 tons of air pollution in a year; since 2005, 100 million tons of that were pollution associated with driving man-made climate change.
"If fracking is allowed here, this is the kind of damage we will see in New York," said Heather Leibowitz, campaign director for Environment New York. She said the 280 billion gallons of contaminated water noted in the report is equivalent to what flows in the Hudson River past Troy for nearly a month.
The report can be found online at http://bit.ly/1c9hCBr
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