Marcellus Shale: Can Frac Fluid Migrate Into Drinking Water?

Penn State University Geologist Dr. Terry Engelder discusses frac fluids and talks about the possibility of fluids migrating from the Marcellus shale into fresh water aquifers.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• marcellus
• shale
• natural
• gas
• production
• unit
• well
• spacing
• permits
• frac
• frack
• fracking
• fracing
• hydraulic
• fracturing
• fluid
• methane
• migration
• gasland
• exploration
• leasing
• penn
• state
• university
• cooperative
• extension
• Dr.
• Terry
• Engelder
• geology
• dave
• messersmith

[lewilliams213]

Was this the report that was recently revealed to have been funded by the gas industry?

[PSUWayneCounty]

@lewilliams213 Nope, and as you can tell by the low budget appearance of the videos, their production was not funded by industry.

[Bigdttme]

@PSUWayneCounty are we suppose to belive that because it is low budget it was not funded by industry. Why do you not tell us who funded the project instead of tell us about its por quality.

[PSUWayneCounty]

@Bigdttme Cooperative Extension funding comes from Federal and State appropriations. We have not taken gas industry money to produce this series of videos nor have we used industry money to support our other educational efforts around Marcellus shale.

[seatown2000]

Look at all the books back there how can you not believe this guy.

[FordWilsonShankle]

People are being silenced by "dis-information." The Marcellus Industry, through its unlimited capital, negatively affects the opposition. However if you watch a hearing held in South Western Pennsylvania, you will see that municipalities around Pittsburgh oppose the State House and Senate's proposals (Senate Bill 100 and House Bill 1950) that would take away the rights of local authorities to create ordinances to control drilling sites.

[gdphdb]

@thewoodsman45 - The industry has "equipment for cleaning or recycling the water". Do some research before you make a statement. Currenly some operators recycle 100%, and this just didn't happen yesterday, it has been a couple years now.

[johnmoyer99]

Methane migration and other contaminants in the water table has been documented by the DEP in Non-Marcellus wells in Forest County at a depth of 3-5,000 feet that have been re-opened and fracked. See the post-gazette 4/4/11

[moucon]

@thewoodsman45 The fracturing happens withing a few meters of the horizontal bore... there's a barrier of 2000 meters of solid rock. between the the rock that's "fracked" and the drinking water. A spill at the surface would be the most likely way ground water/wells would be contaminated.

[thewoodsman45]

If the water is so safely "burried" 6-7,000 feet below the surface, how come people are getting nosebleeds from Benzene? or skin leasions from things such as Touline? If 300,000 gallons come back up, it doesnt sound like it likes to "stay down"

He talks about how the rock naturally holds it down, well, that rock is beeing FRACTURED right?

And of that 300,000 Galons of water that comes back up, they have ABSOLUTELY NO EQUIPMENT FOR CLEANING OR RECYCLING THE WATER.

[GasOil85]

With every action there is an equal or opposite reaction.. We just need to look more into the freacing process and fix the issues and then go from there and let the states benefit from this.

[btmummert]

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of Terry's explanation of the geologic principles of fracing. I think we're all certain that there's money to be made, and this is one way to make it. But the risks, including faults and groundwater pathways, aren't investigated. Tell me- can each company be confident that faults or other special circumstances don't compromise the geologic principles you presented? There are exceptions to every rule and I understand that some wells have failed.