WSES-4090-010 Fall 2017 Oil and Gas Site Restoration By: Cameo Hagger Project: This project involves the restoration of drilling and fracking sites in Texas. Texas currently has millions of acers under lease for drilling of oil and gas wells. These leases typically include a 1-2-acre pad site and an access road. In some areas hundreds of pad sites can be interconnected leaving the environment scared and otherwise unusable to its original purpose examples are farming, pasture land, or native landscape. The Texas Rail Road Commission (RRC) has the authority and jurisdiction over the oil and gas industries operating in Texas. Currently, the RRC does have a policy or reclamation process of abandoned surface mining operations …show more content…
The process requires millions of gallons of water which is mixed with numerous chemicals sometimes sand or other substances to prevent the cracks from closing. Fracking has been blamed for numerous issues from methane gas releases, contaminating ground water, to causing earth quakes. Liquids used in the process are stored on site in holding tanks or ponds and are sometimes pumped back into the ground using waste wells. Fracking has become a common practice to increase production on old and new drilling operations. Experts predicted 100,000 new jobs in Texas will be created in the Oil and Gas industries by 2018 bring the total to over 400,000. The rush to create these jobs and boost the economy has given rise to a reduction in environmental regulations. Lobbing efforts by corporations at the state level have resulted in the introduction bills and laws limiting the authority of local municipalities to regulate drilling activities. Cities would be allowed to regulate surface activities such as noise, lights and traffic but not drilling itself. Numerous bills have been introduced to the Texas Legislature to put limits on local control. However, clashes are continuing to grow between cities and states across the nation over oil and gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing. (3) Oil and gas companies and related corporations have spent many years purchasing and leasing the mineral rights from private land owners. This includes universities, cities, and
Fracking has become a highly controversial and publicized topic in recent years due to rising concerns into the potential benefits and consequences of using hydraulic fracturing to retrieve natural gas and oil reserves. With concerns over water pollution, mismanagement of toxic waste and irreversible environmental damage mounting, the practice of fracking has
Throughout the whole drilling process, many chemicals, and wastes release to the air. Among these chemicals, the process emits a huge amount of methane which is a very big contributor to global warming. The possibility of water contamination in fracking areas is also very immense because of the high tendency of wastes to seep back in to water supply. Rachel Richardson, a co-author of the paper from Environment America, told ThinkProgress, “For the past decade, fracking has been a nightmare for our drinking water, our open spaces, and our climate”. Researches have also revealed, as a result of the application of huge pressure in to the rocks, fracking triggers earthquake. As per MSNBC report “new study links Oklahoma earthquakes to fracking”
Fracking is the nickname for Hydraulic fracturing and a type of drilling that has been used since 1950. Today, fracking is the United States most reliable source of natural gas and oils. Fracking consists of safely tapping shale rock and other tight-rock formations by drilling 1-2 kilometres or more below the surface before slowly turning horizontal and then continuing several thousand feet more. One fracking site can have a number of wells. Once the well is drilled, the drill is removed and the well hole is made solid.
Morris, J., & Song, L. (2013, September 16). Study Delivers Good News, Bad News on
Oil has been an important resource for life, and humans have been looking for places to extract it ever since its discovery. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method of extracting oil and gases by drilling deep underground. A water based mixture, consisting of millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals, is injected at high pressures, fracturing rocks and allowing these oils to be collected. Fracking has been documented in several California counties, ranging from urban cities, such as Los Angeles, to rural areas in Central Valley. The underlying question is whether fracking should continue, as it provides the state and country with vital resources, but poses a great threat to the environment.
Oil was discovered in this area in 1951, but the trick was extracting it. Then, not long ago, came a marriage of two techniques—one older, one newer. The older one was “hy - draulic fracturing,” or “fracking,” for short. This is the method by which oil or natural gas is forced from rock. The newer technique was horizontal
I found some information on the greensourcedfw.org on gas drilling also called fraking. Fraking is a process that injects large amounts of water, sand, and chemicals into the rock so it can break up rock formations and releases the natural gas. During the fraking process 2 to 7 million gallons of fresh water with sand and gallons of industrial chemicals so that the wate can penetrare more easily. After the natural gas is released it goes up the well and to the storage tanks, then it is sent to market.
The process of fracking begins with drilling into the ground. After that thousands of gallons f water are mixed with a proprietary blend of several toxic and carcinogenic chemicals that are then shot into the ground to break that shale rock that protects the gas underground. When this process has been completed fracking companies take the chemical
Pursuing hydraulic fracturing as a top manager of Chevron, I will describe the dilemmas that are associated with fracking. The first problem with this procedure is finding the appropriate land and leasing it from the landowners. With talk around the country, it can be difficult finding land because of landowners’ personal experience with the practice of hydraulic fracturing. In southwestern Pennsylvania there have been cases of animal birth defects, faucet erosion, stomach pains, and other health issues; in response, according to the New York Times, “Range Resources maintains that a D.E.P. study from 2010 indicates no air pollution of any kind” (Griswold, 2011). The country is torn in
Natural gas has taken the energy market by storm as a result of the eight years of democratic influence this country has seen. America in the past six years has begun moving away from coal and converting to natural gas. Instead of harvesting coal in the Appalachian Mountain region, new energy companies have moved out west in an effort to harvest the abundance of natural gas located beneath the surface; they do so by a process known as hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling method where high volumes of chemicals mixed with water are injected into the naturally occurring surface cracks. This is done all in an effort to release the small pockets of natural gas trapped within these surface cracks. In recent years, throughout the Midwest, hydraulic fracturing has been linked to the contamination of many farmers and homeowner’s wells. There have been reports of triggered earthquakes as a result of hydraulic fracturing. These cases have all come to find that hydraulic fracturing techniques played a role in these incidents; energy companies have failed to acknowledge or compensate individuals affected. Hydraulic fracturing is destroying our natural environmental stability in the Midwest and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and federal government have done nothing to stop it.
Fracking is done by drilling deep into the ground into a layer of shale where the gas is. A fracking drill with fluid travels through an aquifer and many other layers of rock, then the drill turns 90 degrees and mines a hole through the shale horizontally for what is usually a very long distance. They then proceed to send a slurry of sand, water, and toxic chemicals through along the entire well in hopes that it cracks the shale to release the gases stored inside of it for later use. A large problem with this is not everything can be taken out whether it be the gas or the slurry of sand, water and chemicals. These most of the time get sent into the atmosphere for the gas or in the case of the hodgepodge of different chemicals into a “secure” waste treatment area which is most likely an unsecure lined area in the ground in which the toxic waste is dumped and left to leak back into the soil and wreak more havoc.
While natural gas may be the “cleanest fossil fuel available,” the process of collecting it is not without environmental concern. At the forefront of environmental issues in fracking are the large use of freshwater in wells and the production of large amounts of wastewater. Hunter (2012) points out that as the fracking boom began, “speculators rushed into hydrofracking … with little attention to how much water would be needed or the best practices for managing the water when they were done with the wells.” As mentioned before, in the year 2012 alone, more than 3 billion gallons of fracking water waste were produced in the state of New Mexico. While “conventional gas production generates 65% more wastewater per unit of recovered gas than fracking does” (Schmidt 2013), the use of water by fracking is still of particular to concern to a state like New Mexico
While it is true “fracking”, a procedure to obtain natural gas removal from shale formations, it is also true there have been infrastructure security issues associated with this practice. Furthermore, there have been ecological considerations from fracking brought to the forefront by countless environmentalists. Indeed, hydraulic fracturing, as it is referred to, is a process by which shale gas and oil is uprooted from a depth far below the earth’s exterior. The process of extracting shale gas and oil is employed aggressively while water is forced deep beneath the earth surface through a geological arrangement. From this arrangement, oil and gas is exerted back to the earth’s surface. Moreover, once the hydraulic fracturing process is
Summary and implications: Mining/fracking in New Mexico has been linked to many chronic cases of water contamination and air pollution. These pollutants threaten public health and economy and contribute toward global warming. Additionally, mining/fracking near populated areas drastically increases sound pollution –yet, city residents typically do not have a voice regarding whether mining/fracking occurs in their area. Oil and natural gas production is not new to New Mexico and recent plans to begin fracking in Sandoval County is a leading cause for concern and controversy this year.
Energy production has been one of the most paramount forces that have influenced the actions of the United States as a country. Wars have been fought and treaties have been signed over the opportunity for oil. However, there has been a recent transition to cheaper and domestic energy sources of energy. Oklahoma has become a microcosm of these events that have occurred. With the discovery of natural gas reserves throughout the state, hydraulic fracturing has seen a boom in utilization. However, this has been largely detrimental for the state. Fracking should not be allowed in Oklahoma because of its environmental implications, its effect on Oklahoma’s future, and its impact on the people of Oklahoma.