Treated Frac Water: Still Unsafe?

Quelle surprise!
Del

Snopes versus Chicken Little versus OilCom versus EPA, ad nauseam.

That's OK.

Profit always trumps good practices.

The health hazards of this contaminated water won't kill anybody fast enough to properly assess the blame.

Ho, and we won't ever know what's really in this fracking stew.

Big oil has purchased enough politicians to let them keep the poisons a secret.

And kill most of the other oversight that might have helped keep them honest.

Send me a job app! That would be as good as a winning lottery ticket (in any other than Shirley Jackson's lottery.)

Then why use them at all?

I say BS. You know it ain't so.

Energy Policy Act of 2005 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This bill exempted fluids used in the natural gas extraction process of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) from protections under the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Safe Drinking Water Act, and CERCLA.^[21] It created a loophole that exempts companies drilling for natural gas from disclosing the chemicals involved in fracking operations that would normally be required under federal clean water laws - see exemptions for hydraulic fracturing under United States federal law. The loophole is commonly known as the "Halliburton loophole" since former Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney was reportedly instrumental in its passage.^[22]

"Loophole" is a euphemism for some other kind of hole.

"Then why use them at all?"

Why use what? The stuff we put down the wells?

We use it because it serves a purpose just the same as why you use soap in your water when you do laundry or take a shower or use different ingredients when making your food you eat or like when you put fuel, oil and antifreeze in your vehicles.

We use them because they do something that we need it to do to get the end results we need.

Honestly that was a dumb question.

Well, it's certainly more intelligent than expecting anyone to believe, "the concentration levels we use them at the fracc water is safer for you that what you dump down your own drain every time you wash laundry, do dishes, clean your sink and toilet, wife takes a shower, or you spray your yard for weeds".

Like I said, why use them at all?

Have you been drinking that water??????

And it's on. How many post will it take to just say what is in the solution going down the well, then what is coming back up. Just saying. And guys don't kill the messenger just had to say it.

Why did big oil spend millions getting their fracking brews exempted for two clean water acts? It sure as hell wasn't to keep the water we drink safe and clean.

Are we supposed to trust them?

You are free to believe any of the propaganda you wish.

I knew guys who used to clean parts with MEK and breathed the fumes. They're all dead now.

While the SDWA specifically excludes hydraulic fracturing from UIC regulation under SDWA § 1421 (d)(1),

Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing Under the Safe Drinking ...

Exemptions for hydraulic fracturing under United States ...

Thats a political answer to a technical question.

Does not prove nothing on the technical side but regulates the technical work!

I go to the city to get my water. It's been cleared by the gubbament, and there is no fracking in the city.

http://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/features/drugs-in-our-drinking-water

Only if you start drinking your laundry water we could get into this further!

But if it's "safer for us than what we pour down the drain after doing laundry" why get a bill passed to exempt it from EPA reporting?

I understand the need for 'trade secrets,' but if everyone's using the same basic ingredients, then everyone's 'magic soap' is similar, and public disclosure may also allow for easier comparison of 'magic soaps' by looking at the size and efficiency of the different sites by different companies. This could lead to the refinement of 'magic soap' into a single 'best formula' or a small range of 'standard formulas' for different areas (Gulf of Mexico basin responds best to 'mint-flavored magic soap,' while the Great Plains fracking zone works best with 'Sandalwood-flavored,' and up in the Yukon, you get the most bang for the buck with 'pine-flavored').

The more secrets and 'exemptions from disclosure' that Big Oil has, the more likely John Q Public is going to act like John Q Paranoid, claiming the secrets are to hide the 'fact' that the 'magic soap' is made from yellow-cake uranium, asbestos and baby fat scooped out of newborn infants. Or claim that fracking equipment are literal 'earthquake generators' and the fracking is going to destroy this country in the most literal fashion, by breaking the continent up into gravel and make the rubble sink under the waves like Atlantis.

-Please note that these are not my personal opinions, merely extrapolating how John Q Public reacts to Corporate Secrets. Now if you'll pardon me, I think there's a hole in my hat that needs patching, where's that heavy gauge tin foil...?

Should have read further down before commenting, by appolgies for beating a dead horse.

The reasons for exemption may have had more to do with the way the water is being utilized and re-cycled to a large extent. One cannot simply pump water down a well and forget about that, since at the point of release it is considered to be wastewater, even if pure as the driven snow. The oil companies would have had to have discharge permits for every well they planned on fracking, and this takes a long time to write each permit application, have it reviewed, submit it, and even longer to get back the approval, after a public notice interval.

In order to expedite the process, certain criteria were established about the process involved, and as long as the criteria are met, no harm, no foul (at least with the government regulators).

Granted, any water with a high organic level that is subsequently chlorinated with have a higher than normal residual THM, or other organic halide. It takes energy to clean up any polluted water, but to make the water useful for another round trip downhole is not all that hard, mainly a matter of filtration.