Last Sunday The Guardian newspaper published an article illustrating one of the negatives of fracking, “Fracking boom sucks away precious water from beneath the ground, leaving cattle dead, farms bone-dry and people thirsty”. The title of the article was “A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water”. It is good that they are beginning to realise that fracking has its problems.
As an introduction to the article online, they show a video with the following explanatory text, “In Mertzon and Barnhart in western Texas, the worst drought in two generations is choking the water supply. Water shortages are raising tensions between locals and the fracking industry. Drilling for shale gas uses up to 8m gallons of water each time a well is fracked” (8 million gallons is the same as 30 million litres, or 30 thousand cubic metres). I suggest that you begin by watching the video.
Link to video: Texan drought sets residents against fracking
Here are some quotes from the article:
“Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry’s outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.”
“Nearly 15 million people are living under some form of water rationing, barred from freely sprinkling their lawns or refilling their swimming pools. In Barnhart’s case, the well appears to have run dry because the water was being extracted for shale gas fracking.”
“A few years ago, it seemed like a place on the way out. Now McGuire said she can see nine oil wells from her back porch, and there are dozens of RVs parked outside town, full of oil workers. But soon after the first frack trucks pulled up two years ago, the well on McGuire’s property ran dry.”
Read the entire article in The Guardian.
Paul Carmody
August 23, 2013
Competition over water use is as old as humanity itself. Fracking is just the latest competing interest. The laws concerning water use are in place and it is possible that in some arid areas fracking may be curtailed. In other instances water may be purchased from those who already have rights, such as farmers who would otherwise use it for irrigation. In most areas of the U.S. (the only place where this technology is in wide use) studies and actual experience have shown that there is enough water to allow for fracking to continue without much restriction.
Trucking of water is a major nuisance with some roads literally having the “tar beaten out of them.” Having worked in North Dakota I have seen this first hand. The answer is sufficient taxation to pay for repairs. North Dakota for instance has a severance tax rate of 9%-11.5% of the gross crude value which is enough to cover these added costs many times over (sometimes it is hard for the state find workers to hire to make the repairs). Water trucks come day and night which disturbs the residents. Sometimes water pipelines have been installed which offers a partial solution.
All-in-all I do not consider fresh water supply to be a controversial matter. Imperfect but reasonable solutions are in place. Prosperity has its price. I for one believe that this price is worth the many good jobs that have been created. Many of these jobs provide a solid middle class living for those who are not afraid of hard work but who are not college material. This is one of the few industries that offers well paid jobs for those who do not graduate from college.
There are other issues concerning the efficacy of fracking such as the concern that there may not be enough reserves to justify the investment. If we tackle these issues one at a time we can sort the important ones from the ones that are minor.
Fresh water supply is one of the less critical issues.