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Karoo has reason to fear fracking
International reports seem to suggest that the people of the Karoo and environmental activists have all the reason in the world to fear the planned gas exploration in that vast South African semi-desert region. Without a proper regulatory regime and an efficient enforcement agency to police it, to allow exploration by so-called fracking could be extremely dangerous.
A quick perusal of international information on the use of the deep drilling method of hydraulic fracturing or fracking, which reports in Spiegel describe as “a sort of controlled earthquake, raises serious question-marks about local claims that it has been found to be safe.
This past weekend it was reported that Bonang Mohale, chairman and vice-president of Shell SA, said studies had not found anything “untoward” about hydraulic fracturing, if the process was followed correctly. He said there was no direct evidence that the method caused ground water contamination, as long as standards and best practice were followed.
News reports, however reveal that in the United States, the world’s biggest producer of natural gas, a number of states has put exploration via fracking on hold due to reports of the contamination of water sources and the lack of a well-informed regulatory environment.
Spills above ground
While there have been no documented cases to date of fracking fluids flowing into drinking water under ground, there have been spills above ground.
The federal administration is also being forced to reconsider its existing policies and regulations concerning the use of what are described as unconventional exploration methods.
Bloomberg’s Business Week this past weekend reported that “...reports of contaminated water and alleged disposal of carcinogens in rivers have caught state and federal regulators, and even environmental watchdogs, off guard.... Just as it recovers its footing from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, the administration faces a new threat, again involving a risky drilling technology and charges of lax regulation.”
Fracking involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressure to break up rock formations and release the gas.
“With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of waste water that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens such as benzene and radioactive elements such as radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the waste water by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself,” according to a widely quoted report last week in the New York Times.
According to the Business Week report: “Fracking produces millions of gallons of waste water; some of it containing benzene spilled from holding tanks. The waste water can overwhelm treatment plants not equipped to handle high levels of contaminants. A Feb. 26 New York Times article, using documents from the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) and state regulators, described how radioactive waste water is being discharged into river basins.”
Lack of knowledge
Even in the US, where more than 2 500 wells have been drilled in the past three years alone, it is going to be some time before enough is known about fracking to put comprehensive regulations in place. An EPA-study on the effect of fracking on drinking water is expected to only deliver results in 2014.
Lisa Jackson of the EPA recently told a congressional hearing that if public water-treatment plants couldn't adequately treat waste water from hydraulic fracturing to safe levels — a central concern of critics of the extraction method — EPA could impose standards on drillers who send the waste to the plants.
"EPA can at any time set additional standards for what we call pretreatment, for waste that may go to a treatment plant," Ms. Jackson said according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
There is no reason to believe that South African waste-water treatment plants would be able to deal with such levels of contamination or would be in a position to police regulations even it was in place. Recent experience with so-called acid water from South African mines would rather suggest the opposite.
In a statement put out last week on Cisionwire US gas retailer MXenergy said: “In recent years the new process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has seem poised to transform the natural gas industry.
“Allowing natural gas production companies to tap into huge gas reserves by releasing natural gas molecules trapped in shale, fracking has been seen as a potential answer to America’s energy problems and freedom from dependence on the Middle East. However, it now appears any independence may come at a very serious price.”
Chairman of Shell Oil SA, Bonang Mohale this week claimed that Shell had been and would be ‘open, honest and transparent’ in its dealings with the South African public.
This assurance was offered at Shell media briefings and during radio interviews addressing growing opposition to the multi-national company’s plans to drill for gas in the Karoo.
Questioned on its record of safety and environmental compliance, Mr. Mohale asserted that the company had been drilling for 60 years in the United States and that it had a record of ‘doing things right.’
A cursory search of the Internet yielded a litany of incidents involving Shell Oil and subsidiary companies who admitted culpability by paying fines and settlements. Cash rich multi-nationals traditionally exhaust every avenue of appeal, and delay admitting responsibility as a last resort. It follows that these incidents likely represent a portion of actual claims and exclude private settlements with a secrecy clause forbidding the claimant to talk about it.
· 2007 16 May - Release of chemical pollutants Shell Texas Deer Park - Royal Dutch Shell Plc released tons of chemicals into the air around Houston.
· 2007 14 March Environmental infringements Shell Chemical Company - $6.5 million dollar settlement - “violated air and other emissions standards between 1999 and 2003”.
· 2006 October - Shell Oil and subsidiary, Equilon Enterprises, $6.5 million settlement Riverside County California - $3.6 million civil penalties and ordered Shell to stop future violations California health and safety laws.
· 2006 Shell annual report - pages 146 and 147 approximately 69 pending lawsuits as of the December 31, 2006.
· 2007 March 16 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Shell to contribute to cleaning toxic waste site Arvin California - Environmental Protection Agency found evidence of soil and groundwater contamination.
· 2007 June – Rosedale - Shell prematurely halts cleaning operation despite repeated requests from state authorities. - extensive groundwater contamination - MTBE, gasoline, diesel and benzene seep into the water table).
· 2007 28 August - Bakersfield Californian reports State Senator, Dean Florez, "asked the state’s attorney general to take legal action against Shell.
2007, 27 November Shell restarts clean up now estimated at 4 - 5 million gallons.
· 2003 August 5 - Shell agreed to pay $49 million relating to its unauthorized venting and flaring of gas – coast of Louisiana and Gulf of Mexico. Same location in 2000, Shell to pay $56 million. 2001 Shell paid $110 million.
· 2003 - Pipeline rupture in Washington - United States v. Shell Pipeline Co. LP fka Equilon Pipeline Co. LLC and Olympic Pipe Line Co. Clean Water Act claims for environmental violations - Shell paid civil penalty $5 million and criminal fines of $15 million.
· 2004 - Refinery contamination Texas - Hilton Kelley, and 1,200 residents Port Arthur, launch class action lawsuit alleging breach environmental human rights. Guardian UK 24 June 2004, “Shell was emitting 200-300 times the allowed emissions - many of them carcinogenic”.
· 2001 – February, environmental law infringements Brazil - Shell admitted responsibility according to a Greenpeace report, contamination by organochlorine pesticides including endrin, dieldrin and aldrin.
· Durban – Sapref Oil refinery, jointly owned Shell and BP, accused of a "dismal pollution record, which has claimed the lives of many residents." Sapref admitted in writing plant did not have a "perfect environmental and social performance record". Accusation that Shell/BP apply double standards, - South African operation far less circumspect on environmental controls than its refineries elsewhere in the world.
· 2001 March - US Clean Air Act violations – EPA and U.S. Department of Justice announce settlement committing nine refineries owned by amongst others, Equilon Enterprises, to invest $400 million over eight years to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter.
· 1998 September- Emission violations Shell Wood River Refinery Illinois - U.S. Justice Department announces settlement Shell … “hundreds of environmental violations including illegal levels sulfur dioxide and hydrogen sulfide air emissions, benzene (a hazardous air pollutant), violations solid waste labeling, reporting, and manifesting requirements, untimely reporting emissions of extremely hazardous substances - ammonia and chlorine, and violations of Illinois water regulations”.
· 1995 – Shell settles Martinez Refinery dumping suit for $3 Million -
“dumping illegal amounts of selenium into San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta”.
· 1989 – Shell fined $19.75 million oil spill Martinez Refinery - December 1, New York Times - Shell to pay $19.75 mill...