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> Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater. West Texas oil producers pump millions of gallons of so-called produced water, lace

> Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater. West Texas oil producers pump millions of gallons of so-called produced water, laced with chemical lubricants and numerous hazardous compounds such as arsenic, bromide, strontium, mercury, barium, and organic compounds, particularly benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, underground every day for disposal, often into old oil and gas wells. No shit. The Permian Basin is home to some of the biggest fracking operations and they've been depleting the ground water to supply the wells so much they've started to run out and have to recycle the waste water: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin-fracking-oil-wastewater-recycling/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/12/19/texas-permian-basin-... Pennsylvania is increasingly having a similar problem with what they're calling "frac-outs" where the fracking water breaches nearby wells and poisons residential water: https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energy/2022-07-15/dep-investigating-a-frac-out-at-an-eqt-well-in-greene-county-residents-claim-water-contamination https://www.wesa.fm/environment-energy/2022-07-15/dep-invest...

mlindner 2y ago
The Pennsylvania situation is completely different. Those were wells drilled decades ago that were extremely shallow and done with very simplistic methods that didn't isolate the well from ground water. That type of drilling is no longer done. The wells in the Permian are below multiple levels of bedrock well below any pumpable ground water and they're lined with impermeable barriers all the way up the well. Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells water was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not fracked wells.
- Johnny555 2y ago
  >Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells water was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not fracked wells.* The oilfield firefighter quoted in the article (who has experience with wells in 102 countries), suspects that the Texas problems are related to fracking. So I don't think fracking can be dismissed out of hand, even if it's the old wells that are failing. Hawk Dunlap, an oilfield firefighter who lives in Crane County and surveyed the recent blowout for Wight last week. “It’s not clear what the source is.” ... Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater
  - mlindner 2y ago
    To be clearer, it's not related to fracking wells as the wells being injected into are not fracked wells.
    - Johnny555 2y ago
      Isn't that the same thing the fracking companies tell people when their well water is contaminated? It's not related to fracking because we're not injecting water into your wells?
      - DowagerDave 2y ago
        no, because fracking is the deliberate fracturing of the reservoir with increased pressure, which can penetrate into the water table and contaminate water wells. This is using the old well as a disposal for the used/fracking/whatever water - not repressurizing this well. The column of fluid acts as a cap on the reservoir pressure that wants to vacate the old well. What's likely happening is an alternative exit (maybe created by fracking, maybe not?) is allowing the well to produce, vacating water, contaminants and oil.
- sevensor 2y ago
  People forget that Pennsylvania is the birthplace of industrial petroleum extraction. There are abandoned wellheads all over, many of which exist in no records anywhere, and which are often in the middle of dense forest that has grown up since they were drilled. PA was also logged extensively for charcoal, timber, and fuel for locomotives. A forester once told me that nearly the entire state burned over during the peak of deforestation at the beginning of the 20th century.
  - alamortsubite 2y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_City,_Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_City,_Pennsylvania
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Interesting problem: how would you locate unmapped abandoned wells for triage and plugging?
    - sevensor 2y ago
      Unfortunately I think they're mostly discovered when there's a fish kill in a nearby stream, or somebody's well water starts smelling funny. Industry in PA has a long history of closing up shop and leaving environmental problems for future generations to trip over. I talked with a plumber who told me a story about the heavy-duty multi-stage treatment system he installed for a house where the well water was basically acid mine drainage. He had to bring the pH up from 4! When he took out the old water heater, it was full of heavy brown sludge, which he had to drain before it was possible to move it.
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        This is very helpful! Would some of the metrics this device can track be attributable to when this pollution occurs? Specifically thinking rapid ph change, and and a deployment of these devices in a sensor fabric across vulnerable bodies of moving water. Perhaps also an opportunity for a distributed network of water sensors on private water wells still in use. https://www.crowdsupply.com/georgetown-scientific-llc/nectar-monitor https://www.crowdsupply.com/georgetown-scientific-llc/nectar...
fransje26 2y ago
The first article you linked to is absolutely, mind-boggingly insane. Just one of the absurd quotes from it: Fears hit especially hard in the state’s western desert and plains, where fracking is booming. Almost 80% of this vast region’s documented water demand is met by a complex collection of aquifers — colossal, subterranean formations that filled up over millions of years. “We’re just planning to deplete it. It’s not like we’re conserving it. We’re just making the crash landing slow and somewhat tolerable,” said Jeff Bennett, a hydrogeologist in the West Texas town of Alpine who worked for 15 years for the National Park Service nearby. end. Such a fate awaits the Ogallala Aquifer, the nation’s largest underground body of water, which swoops into West Texas from the north, and for which the Texas Water Development Board calls “managed depletion” its “management strategy.” I mean.. What? But it gets better: Some of the water is reused in fracking, but the large majority is pumped underground and discarded. Planners have considered treating it to irrigate crops instead, which California does with wastewater that is much less salty and doesn’t include fracking fluids. They have so much heavily polluted, toxic water they don't what to do with that they want to pump it in our food supplies. They are not content enough of polluting the water supplies for the coming centuries, they also want to make sure that food-growing land is unfit for human use as well. Very, very impressive.

mlindner 2y ago

The Pennsylvania situation is completely different. Those were wells drilled decades ago that were extremely shallow and done with very simplistic methods that didn't isolate the well from ground water. That type of drilling is no longer done. The wells in the Permian are below multiple levels of bedrock well below any pumpable ground water and they're lined with impermeable barriers all the way up the well. Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells water was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not fracked wells.

Johnny555 2y ago
>Further this article isn't even about fracking. The wells water was pumped into were ancient abandoned wells, not fracked wells.* The oilfield firefighter quoted in the article (who has experience with wells in 102 countries), suspects that the Texas problems are related to fracking. So I don't think fracking can be dismissed out of hand, even if it's the old wells that are failing. Hawk Dunlap, an oilfield firefighter who lives in Crane County and surveyed the recent blowout for Wight last week. “It’s not clear what the source is.” ... Dunlap suspects it may be related to the injection of fracking wastewater
- mlindner 2y ago
  To be clearer, it's not related to fracking wells as the wells being injected into are not fracked wells.
  - Johnny555 2y ago
    Isn't that the same thing the fracking companies tell people when their well water is contaminated? It's not related to fracking because we're not injecting water into your wells?
    - DowagerDave 2y ago
      no, because fracking is the deliberate fracturing of the reservoir with increased pressure, which can penetrate into the water table and contaminate water wells. This is using the old well as a disposal for the used/fracking/whatever water - not repressurizing this well. The column of fluid acts as a cap on the reservoir pressure that wants to vacate the old well. What's likely happening is an alternative exit (maybe created by fracking, maybe not?) is allowing the well to produce, vacating water, contaminants and oil.
sevensor 2y ago
People forget that Pennsylvania is the birthplace of industrial petroleum extraction. There are abandoned wellheads all over, many of which exist in no records anywhere, and which are often in the middle of dense forest that has grown up since they were drilled. PA was also logged extensively for charcoal, timber, and fuel for locomotives. A forester once told me that nearly the entire state burned over during the peak of deforestation at the beginning of the 20th century.
- alamortsubite 2y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_City,_Pennsylvania https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_City,_Pennsylvania
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Interesting problem: how would you locate unmapped abandoned wells for triage and plugging?
  - sevensor 2y ago
    Unfortunately I think they're mostly discovered when there's a fish kill in a nearby stream, or somebody's well water starts smelling funny. Industry in PA has a long history of closing up shop and leaving environmental problems for future generations to trip over. I talked with a plumber who told me a story about the heavy-duty multi-stage treatment system he installed for a house where the well water was basically acid mine drainage. He had to bring the pH up from 4! When he took out the old water heater, it was full of heavy brown sludge, which he had to drain before it was possible to move it.
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      This is very helpful! Would some of the metrics this device can track be attributable to when this pollution occurs? Specifically thinking rapid ph change, and and a deployment of these devices in a sensor fabric across vulnerable bodies of moving water. Perhaps also an opportunity for a distributed network of water sensors on private water wells still in use. https://www.crowdsupply.com/georgetown-scientific-llc/nectar-monitor https://www.crowdsupply.com/georgetown-scientific-llc/nectar...

fransje26 2y ago

The first article you linked to is absolutely, mind-boggingly insane. Just one of the absurd quotes from it: Fears hit especially hard in the state’s western desert and plains, where fracking is booming. Almost 80% of this vast region’s documented water demand is met by a complex collection of aquifers — colossal, subterranean formations that filled up over millions of years. “We’re just planning to deplete it. It’s not like we’re conserving it. We’re just making the crash landing slow and somewhat tolerable,” said Jeff Bennett, a hydrogeologist in the West Texas town of Alpine who worked for 15 years for the National Park Service nearby. end. Such a fate awaits the Ogallala Aquifer, the nation’s largest underground body of water, which swoops into West Texas from the north, and for which the Texas Water Development Board calls “managed depletion” its “management strategy.” I mean.. What? But it gets better: Some of the water is reused in fracking, but the large majority is pumped underground and discarded. Planners have considered treating it to irrigate crops instead, which California does with wastewater that is much less salty and doesn’t include fracking fluids. They have so much heavily polluted, toxic water they don't what to do with that they want to pump it in our food supplies. They are not content enough of polluting the water supplies for the coming centuries, they also want to make sure that food-growing land is unfit for human use as well. Very, very impressive.