Official: Ark. natural gas regulations sufficient
A joint session of Agriculture, Forestry, and Economic Development spent nearly seven hours Tuesday discussing a package of Interim Study Proposals concerning natural gas production in Arkansas. The proposals, two of which I’m sponsoring, were first introduced during the 2011 legislation session. Since we met strong opposition, we sent the bills to study. Tuesday’s meeting marked the first step.
From BusinessWeek:
Arkansas’ top environmental official said Tuesday that she believes her department has “sufficient” regulatory authority over natural gas drilling in Arkansas but says she wants to keep additional inspectors funded through an agreement with the Game and Fish Commission.
Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality Director Teresa Marks told lawmakers that she believed the current regulations on natural gas drilling are sufficient. She spoke at a hearing on proposals to increase regulation of natural gas drillers and a process they use called hydraulic fracturing.
A Tainted Water Well, and Concern There May Be More
From The New York Times:
For decades, oil and gas industry executives as well as regulators have maintained that a drilling technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, that is used for most natural gas wells has never contaminated underground drinking water.
The claim is based in part on a simple fact: fracking, in which water and toxic chemicals are injected at high pressure into the ground to break up rocks and release the gas trapped there, occurs thousands of feet below drinking-water aquifers. Because of that distance, the drilling chemicals pose no risk, industry officials have argued.
“There have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing. Not one,” Rex W. Tillerson, the chief executive of ExxonMobil, said last year at a Congressional hearing on drilling.
It is a refrain that not only drilling proponents, but also state and federal lawmakers, even past and presentEnvironmental Protection Agency directors, have repeated often.
But there is in fact a documented case, and the E.P.A. report that discussed it suggests there may be more. Researchers, however, were unable to investigate many suspected cases because their details were sealed from the public when energy companies settled lawsuits with landowners.
Arkansas: Disposal Well Is Ordered Closed
From The New York Times:
The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission voted Wednesday to close a well used to dispose of natural gas fluids and ban the drilling of others in an area north of Conway where hundreds of earthquakes have struck. The well between Greenbrier and Enola is operated by Deep-Six Water Disposal Services, a subsidiary of Hurst Oil Investments Inc. The moratorium would not affect the drilling of natural gas wells, but it would change how fluids from the process are disposed. Gas companies have tapped natural gas by injecting water and chemicals under high pressure to fracture the shale, a process known as fracking. Those fluids are injected into separate wells for disposal. The commission pinpointed four wells that it said needed to be closed. Operators of three of the wells agreed to close them by Sept. 30. Deep-Six, which operates the fourth, says its disposal well does not cause any seismic activity.
Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush
From The New York Times:
Production data, provided by companies to state regulators and reviewed by The Times, show that many wells are not performing as the industry expected. In three major shale formations — the Barnett in Texas, the Haynesville in East Texas and Louisiana and the Fayetteville, across Arkansas — less than 20 percent of the area heralded by companies as productive is emerging as likely to be profitable under current market conditions, according to the data and industry analysts.
Central Arkansas growing weary of relentless tremors
From CNN:
More than 500 measurable earthquakes have been reported in central Arkansas since September 20, ranging in magnitude from a barely noticeable 1.8 to a very noticeable 4.0 (recorded on October 11), according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Geologists can’t say whether they’ll stop anytime soon.
Steve Wilson is looking forward to the quakes going away, he said.
“In the beginning, it was fun, it was neat, it was a cool thing to experience. But now we’re wanting it to go away,” said Wilson, assistant superintendent at Woolly Hallow State Park. “We’ve had all the fun we want.”
Although drilling for natural gas has been ruled out as a cause for the quakes, experts want to continue looking at salt water disposal wells, said Scott Ausbrooks, geohazards supervisor for the Geological Survey. Disposal wells occur when drilling waster is injected back into the earth after drilling.
