The poison fracking leaves behind shows up in what the oil and gas industry politely refers to as “produced water.”
This is perhaps more accurately described as poisonous wastewater. It’s the water left behind after it has been injected at high pressure through a well into underground bedrock formations.
There is a lot of it. Data from the United States Geological Survey reveals that to frack a single well, it takes between 1.5 million and 9.7 million gallons of water.
In an arid state such as New Mexico, where water is, at best, in short supply, we might wonder why millions of gallons of a prized resource are laced with chemicals and used to extract fossil fuels.
In New Mexico, according to MineralAnswers.com, five new oil or gas wells have been completed every day for the past three years.
Water laced with chemicals is shot into walls of bedrock at a high pressure of roughly 8,000 psi. Then, after breaking down the rock so oil and gas can be extracted, the wastewater is pumped into deep wells.
These disposal wells are intended to be permanent, protective storage.
Sadly, the disposal wells can be flawed. Failures are not uncommon.
In 2010, poisons seeped out of a disposal well, gurgled up to the earth’s surface and made an unwelcome appearance in a dog park on the west side of Los Angeles.
The “produced water” stored in disposal wells is toxic. The American Geosciences Institute notes that it typically contains oil residue, corrosive salts and dissolved organic compounds.
That’s what we know. What we don’t know is exactly which chemicals appear. The oil and gas companies’ proprietary protections, which cover blends of chemicals mixed into the water, allow this to fall under the legal veil of trade secrets.
How carcinogenic are these chemical blends? What exactly can we measure when it comes to the poison fracking leaves behind?
There is much we don’t know. Although this wastewater is often stored on public land, no federal government agency has told the oil and gas industry to reveal the chemical composition.
To try and learn more, scientists with the Yale School of Public Health analyzed 1,021 of the chemicals used for fracking. Two determinations were made.
First, because oil and gas companies won’t reveal the composition of their chemical blends, there’s not enough information to provide an informed picture of how much poison is involved.
But the Yale scientists didn’t come up empty.
Many of the toxins they found have longstanding links to health problems.
There are 157 on their list, toxins such as mercury, benzene, arsenic, cadmium, formaldehyde, chlorine and lead.
There are 30,000 disposal wells across America. Precisely what they are filled with, the poison fracking leaves behind, this remains the toxic secret of the oil and gas industry.
