The Gamble: Gas vs. Water
R.D. Wilson
The gas hydraulic fracturing (fracking) controversy has recently struck close to home, the Northern Neck of Virginia. We’ve read conflicting opinions regarding (fracking). Those who see the opportunities to cash in, are for it. Those who have legitimate concerns about the environmental dangers are against it. Those who have voiced concerns about the plan to drill through the aquifer on which the region depends are shouted down by the gas advocates. Absent from the arguments I’ve seen has been input from anyone who has seen and experienced the consequences of fracking. Someone like me.
In the late 1970’s there was a gas well drilling frenzy in the area around Clarksburg, West Virginia. We knew that we were purchasing only the surface rights when we bought our farm 12 miles outside of Clarksburg. This was normal in West Virginia. The locals liked to say that out-of-state interests owned 65% of West Virginia’s surface, 95% of the minerals, and 100% of the state legislature.
Our property ran from ridge top to ridge top near the head of the hollow. The house and outbuildings were on one side of the hollow and a hillside meadow on the other. There was an old gas well in the meadow. It was no longer commercially viable, but the gas pipeline still ran from the well across the hollow and over the far ridge. The terms of the contract for the mineral rights gave the owner of the surface unlimited free gas as long as the well was producing. And, it was producing enough to take care of our needs.
When we drove out to our new home on the day we settled on the property, a bulldozer was ripping up our hillside meadow near the old gas well. The gas company was preparing to sink a new well. No one, at any point in our purchase process, had mentioned the possibility of another gas well. But as we learned, in West Virginia, whoever had the mineral rights could do whatever was necessary to extract their minerals, and there was no need for them to consult with the surface owners.
They bulldozed a level area out of the hillside for a drilling platform and dug a containment pond (without a liner) for water produced and used during the drilling. We were told not to worry because the hillside would be restored after the drilling operation was completed.
When the Halliburton trucks arrived, I asked the local man reactivating the gas pipelines on the farm what was going on. He said that they were getting ready to frack both the new well and the old well to rejuvenate it. That was a new term to me, so he explained. He said that they pumped a slurry of gravel, water and chemicals into the well under high pressure to crack the rock and allow the gas to flow freely. The gravel was to wedge into the cracks and hold them open after the pressure was released.
I asked if this would jeopardize our water supply. He said that it could. If the process ruptured the bedrock on which the water table flowed, the water could go down into the fractured rock. Even if we still had water, it was possible for the gas to invade the water table, and we could light our taps. But he didn’t think we would be affected because our water well was on the opposite side of the hollow from where the gas wells were located.
We were lucky, our water wasn’t affected. However, we had friends in the area that could light their taps and couldn’t drink their water. In some cases, the wells weren’t even on their property. The gas company had no enforceable liability. During the drilling frenzy the weekly newspaper published in Clarksburg frequently reported house explosions due to gas invading the house through the water system.
The land restoration amounted to filling in the containment pond, and spreading straw on the bare earth. Only weeds would grow on the barren gash across the meadow. The stream draining the hollow that had once been alive with aquatic life was dead from the silt and drainage from the drilling site. I called the Governor’s Office to try to find out how to enforce restoration of the surface from the drilling activity. Their only advice was, “Buy the mineral rights.”
My experience in West Virginia, reinforced by other catastrophes in the news related to oil and gas extraction convinces me that there is no 100% safe way to extract, transport or process oil and gas. When accidents happen, and they do, the people whose lives are turned upside down are rarely, if ever, made whole. If an aquifer is poisoned, how is that going to be fixed? How will the people affected be made whole? Who will pay the cost?
In the uphill battle to clean up the Rappahannock and Potomac rivers and the Chesapeake Bay, who will bear the consequences of fouling the streams and groundwater draining into the Bay? In spite of precautions taken by the drillers, there will be human and equipment failures that foul area water resources. Some may be limited and quickly contained. Others may be potentially catastrophic. Who pays? We all will. Who benefits from the gas exploration? The oil and gas industry, and, perhaps those who have leased or sold their mineral rights.
Those seduced into selling or leasing gas rights under their land as a low risk, but high reward gamble are betting their farms on what looks like a sure deal. However, if the water is contaminated, they aren’t going to be the only losers from their bet.
