Is anyone else VERY worried about our water situation?

[HuntingHawk]

The chemicals injected into the ground for fracking sure isn't helping.

[Coppertop]

HH

Formation Fracturing (Fracking is a media word- it's really Frac-ing) isn't just a bunch of chemicals like the media and the enviromentalists want you to believe. YES there are some chemicals in it but they are usually pretty diluted. The Frac-ing is also done in a different zone, that is usually quite some ways from a water source. Most wells I have worked on, all over the western US, have water tables (drinkable) someplace between 800 and 2000 ft. The Gas zones are generally from 4500 ft to 25,000 ft.

I have lived in a number of different "Boom" towns that are in the middle of oil and gas fields and have never seen the Bad Water Effects such as gas in the water etc that the media claim. The one cost of Frac-ing that I do see is that quite a bit of water is used to carry the sand downhole. Some of that water is produced with the gas and oil then reused, but a bunch of it is fresh water. I apologize if this is the part you are refering to.

This subject gets to me. I have run cement, frac and most other downhole equipment all over and just see the Fracking Scare as just that. It sure seems to me that none of these reporters learn about what they are reporting on and only listen to one side of a story. I guess that is like everything else they talk about too. Just that this one hits close to the ol pocket book.

Thanks for letting me rant.

[Innkeeper]

Our water quality is just fine, however the COE has dropped our lake 10 feet and wont let any water accumulate from the rains we have had in order to keep the construction cost down for a private company doing a road expansion on I-35, it will be another Toll Road of course dontcha know...ironically they have put all kinds of restrictions on water use and are clamering for water conservation at the top of their lungs.

I am up here in the Great Lakes and I think this year was one of the first in about 10 we had a positive movement on the lakes that long hard winter has helped and so far plenty of rain this summer, heck this is the longest we have gone without rain it is 11 days now, but they are calling for T-storms both Monday and Tuesday, crops are looking good and the nighttime sleeping weather has been great I think the hottest day all summer so far has been low 80's this time last year it was 90's. All of this should make for a nice hunting season, fishing has been good too.

[Innkeeper]

HH

Formation Fracturing (Fracking is a media word- it's really Frac-ing) isn't just a bunch of chemicals like the media and the enviromentalists want you to believe. YES there are some chemicals in it but they are usually pretty diluted. The Frac-ing is also done in a different zone, that is usually quite some ways from a water source. Most wells I have worked on, all over the western US, have water tables (drinkable) someplace between 800 and 2000 ft. The Gas zones are generally from 4500 ft to 25,000 ft.

I have lived in a number of different "Boom" towns that are in the middle of oil and gas fields and have never seen the Bad Water Effects such as gas in the water etc that the media claim. The one cost of Frac-ing that I do see is that quite a bit of water is used to carry the sand downhole. Some of that water is produced with the gas and oil then reused, but a bunch of it is fresh water. I apologize if this is the part you are refering to.

This subject gets to me. I have run cement, frac and most other downhole equipment all over and just see the Fracking Scare as just that. It sure seems to me that none of these reporters learn about what they are reporting on and only listen to one side of a story. I guess that is like everything else they talk about too. Just that this one hits close to the ol pocket book.

Thanks for letting me rant.

You hit it right on the head, Natural Gas is huge up here in Michigan I worked in the fields until my Back injury on My first Government sponsored vacation, but a good chunk of my family still works in the field, and it annoys me as well when I hear the lies from the media and libtard tree huggers about the process. Kind of like how hunting is bad for the animals , but hunters probably put more money into conservation then any tree hugging or animal rights group out there, we want our wilderness happy and the animals to be plentiful and multiply, just like I want the cost of my natural gas and fuel to be low and would rather get all that we have without buying it from other countries.

Though Michigan pumps NG all across the Midwest for others consumption, surprisingly for all we produce up here I would say half the people use propane to heat which they bring in and we pay through the nose for during winter, because groups protest fracking even here. Our last Governor was a Dem and opposed to big business, she stopped new well drilling back in 2008 starting lots of lay offs and price spikes, thankfully while I was away for the active duty again she was voted out and our new governor started drilling again and even bringing more jobs home, sadly for the unions he made us a right to work state. I spent a few years as UAW, their time is past. But I digress Thanks for speaking up about the real process.

[HuntingHawk]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/...lling/4328859/

http://energyindepth.org/national/ho...contamination/

[Coppertop]

In the links that HH put up, here is a quote that is in the first article (the one about how bad fracking is)

"Experts say the most common type of pollution involves methane, not chemicals from the drilling process."

Methane is a naturally occuring gas that is found in most underground formations. It is already in most if not all water aquifers. It could be possible that what the homeowners are experiencing is that the water table has dropped for whatever reason and the methane gas isn't being held back like it was before. This allows the methane to combine and flow with the water. A real easy solution to most of the issues these people are having would be to put in a cistern. That would allow the methane to "Flash" out of the water (Think a pop or soda going flat). Then run the water through a "taste" filter and it should be good as it ever was.

I can go into formation pressures and hydrostatic head pressures if anyone wants me to. Please let me know.

[Inor]

I do not know about frac-ing, but I know here in Minnesota the biggest contributor to the water table going down is the stupid government sponsored ethanol plants. Last year they reported that the water table in SW Minnesota had dropped 9 FEET because of all of the water required to make ethanol. Not to mention, Minnesota and Iowa grow some of the most nutrient rich corn in the world. So our politicians want to use all of it for ethanol rather than food. It is absolutely asinine to be subsidizing the production of a less efficient fuel at the expense of our food production and ruining the water table in the process. But that is what you get when you hire a douchebag governor like Mark Dayton.

[Slippy]

In the links that HH put up, here is a quote that is in the first article (the one about how bad fracking is)

"Experts say the most common type of pollution involves methane, not chemicals from the drilling process."

Methane is a naturally occuring gas that is found in most underground formations. It is already in most if not all water aquifers. It could be possible that what the homeowners are experiencing is that the water table has dropped for whatever reason and the methane gas isn't being held back like it was before. This allows the methane to combine and flow with the water. A real easy solution to most of the issues these people are having would be to put in a cistern. That would allow the methane to "Flash" out of the water (Think a pop or soda going flat). Then run the water through a "taste" filter and it should be good as it ever was.

I can go into formation pressures and hydrostatic head pressures if anyone wants me to. Please let me know.

Yes, I would appreciate more of your insight. Thanks CT

[Coppertop]

A gallon of water weighs 8.33lbs, but in a vertical column water exerts .433 lbs/square inch (PSI) per ft. So say you have a column of water that is 10 ft tall creating 4.3 psi at the bottom of the column. Width and shape of the column doesn't matter, this is strictly a vertical measurement.

Formation pressure is the force that is pushing on gas/water/oil/ etc.

Here we are only dealing with the height of the aquifer, not the depth below ground- more later on that

When the water table is up ( we can use 20 ft of aquifer for an example) the gases such as methane are basically trapped by the 8.6 PSI of water. What happens when the water table drops is that the hydrostatic head is reduced allowing the gas to mingle into the water. So if we are now at 10 ft of aquifer, now there is only 4.3 PSI. If the formation pressure is equal to say 6 PSI for our example, the formation has almost 2 PSI differental and gas is allowed in where as before we had almost 3 PSI more in hydrostatic pressure to keep it out. There are also things like gas migration and entrapment that affect these numbers ever so slightly, but for most intents and purposes they are null.

The easiest example I can think of, while not perfect is a pop/soda bottle. Pretend the pop itself is the formation, the carbonation is the gas, and the cap is the hydrostatic head. The cap is holding pressure on the formation (pop) and the gas, while still present, is entrained in the formation. What happens when you open the cap? All the gas rushes out until the hydrostatic head, which is now just atmosphere, equals the gas pressure in the pop. Then as you drink the pop, the hydrostatic head changes again and you see gas bubbles floating to the top to equalize the pressure.

Remember your water aquifers are not just 10 or 20 ft tall and are also 800/1500 +/- ft underground so do not take my example as gospel but as a workable thought. The same principles apply at 10 ft as they do at 1000 ft or 30,000 ft.below ground. The only difference is that at 30,000ft it makes for bigger volumes of fluid to deal with in a well bore.

I hope this makes a little bit of sense. If there are any questions or clarification points I would be glad to answer them the best I can.

Jbrooks- I kind of feel like I hijacked your thread, and for that I apologize

[SquirrelBait]

Buy two things (Three if you're really thinking d00m)
1. A Berkey or comparable water filter.
2. A dehumidifier with a reservoir.
3. (D00m Optional) Solar to run the dehumidifier.
Run the dehumidifier, Filter the water from the reservoir through the Berkey/Filter, Enjoy!

Pull the water from the air.