Did Drilling Contaminate Wyoming's Drinking Water?

Think that any company injecting anything in to the ground should disclose what that substance is. No exclusion for anyone. I feel that no hazardous substances should be allow to be pump in to the ground. The earth crust is aways at change. So sooner or later the substances will come back up to haunt us. Are we placing a death sentence or hardship on our descendant in their need for fresh water.

I know much is done to insure that as a well is drilled our water supply is not contaminated. Casing is set below the water table and every geological formation the well is drilled through. It's cemented in at each stage. The problem is if and went one does leak it may leak for years before it shows in our water supply. By that time the damage is done.

The problem is how do we provide for our energy needs without putting sever economical hardship on the companies providing it and still insure the safety of our water supply? Do we legislate them out of business? To other countries who's leaders will ignore the damage it does? More lost jobs, More lost businesses, More hardship on the public as we import it.

More than likely what is being experienced is the leaching of drilling fluids from high operating pressures BEFORE the casing was put into place.

Here we see the major problem of taping our own recourses in the US

Nothing is gained without consequence, as we all know here, for every action there is in fact an equal reaction to be dealt with. There is the tough facts of life, drilling for hydrocarbons is and always has been and always will be a dirty job.

This statement can be sugar coated by other posters, but the fact will remain the same... Some of the major "players" in todays market have excepted this, but I doubt if the good old US ever will.

Now as most folks, I supose the next post will be about the price of this recource after it has been imported?

Actually you fairly summed my thoughts.

Or could in be sabotage, someone not wanting the resource to be tapped? And willing to contaminate to get their way.

From what i have seen the first string of casing is set and cemented in below the water table. The hole to that point is drilled with fresh water. The pressure in which the drilling fluid is under is depends on the depth and what it takes to get the material drilled out to flow to surface. My recollection the pressure at the jets on the drill bit was 5000 psi. This is no where near the pressures used to fracture.

I am more inclined to believe the fracturing fluid is to blame. That under the pressure of fracturng its being forced up the outside. Though each string of casing is cemented in, the bond to the bore hole is not fluid tight. The cement it self is permeable. All the rigs that i have worked on were drilling for oil but one. It was drill an exploration hole for gas to 21,000 feet. Nothing i saw was done any different as the well was drilled.

The article in the link name a drilling company it was one of many that I had been employed by. I have nothing bad to say about their operation. They treated me very well. They did nothing different then any of the other drilling companies.