Still Not the Last Word on Fracking
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Though it was called "the final report" on fracking in North Carolina, let's not allow it to be the last word.
We're talking about the paper that the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) sent to the General Assembly the other day with regard to hydraulic fracturing, the controversial method of extracting natural gas from deep underground. It responded to some concerns but left too many others unaddressed.
The report purports to give the legislature all the background information it needs as it ponders whether to legalize the procedure. It offers the conclusion that fracking "can be done safely" if the lawmakers put enough tailor-made standards in place and sink "sufficient resources" into setting up an adequate regulatory system.
But one still wonders whether even this preliminary investment is a wise one, especially at a time when so many other needs cry out for funding.
Landowners Justifiably Cautious
Fracking involves pumping millions of gallons of water deep underground. Much of that water has to be trucked in, with accompanying damage to fragile country roads. Because of the presence of certain shale deposits in the Deep River Basin covering parts of Lee, Moore and Chatham counties, any discussing of prospects for fracking in North Carolina have focused there.
Most of the mineral-rights leases that landowners have already signed with gas companies are in Lee - totaling about 9,000 acres so far. Those leases were signed mostly in the year 2010, when company representatives began appearing like vultures, and some of those leases will begin expiring as early as next year.
In the initial rush, some people clearly signed up without knowing what they were getting into. Since then, nonprofit groups have conducted workshops throughout the affected area to educate property owners. At least partly as a result of that, residents in upper Moore appear to be taking an extremely cautious approach, with few or no signings so far. And that caution would appear to be well-justified.
A Colossal Gamble
Most fracking so far has taken place in states with a history of oil drilling, and plenty of alarms have been sounded. But it could be even worse here. Our soil is different. And our gas is said to be about 3,000 feet down, as opposed to 10,000 in, say, Pennsylvania, meaning it's much closer to our water table.
Supporters have thrown some impressive figures around, but some of them may be bogus. The new state study estimates that fracking in our region would sustain an average of 387 jobs per year during first seven years of production; that the operation would boost the economy of North Carolina as a whole by $453 million by the completion of all drilling in state; and that it would meet the state's natural gas needs for 30 years.
But most of those jobs would probably be filled by outsiders who would flock to our area and strain our infrastructure for a few years before disappearing in search of new work. The money wouldn't necessarily stay here, either. And neither would the gas itself, which would be sold on the global market.
In short, the whole thing is looking like a colossal gamble, with no assurances of positive results. That's why we should be going slow - if at all.
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Comments
PBinNC 1 year ago
This editorial crosses all the T's and dots all the I's...I hope the whole idea is scrapped. Taking a risk that goes bad, but can't be corrected or managed, is just not worth it.
lotamom 1 year ago
This comment is from my friend, Ava Spencer, who owns land in West Texas: " I live with a gas well in my back yard. 3 actually. They smell. They are noisey. Trucks come and go at all hours. The drivers forget to shut the gates, they let my horses out. There are more of these(I did not realize it until yesterday driving around on the back roads, been too busy with mom to ck the neighborhood the last few months)if you put a tac on our wells on the map and make a circle I counted at least 11 new well sites...all within a 2 mi radius...not good , I think. The income....not good....and we have to pay taxes the county believes it's all worth...plus on "improvements" on the leased land, equipment that belongs to the companies. It is not worth what we are allowing to happen to our land for a little bit of cash in the hand. I wish I had stuck to my no drill clause. I'd still have my pond. Be very careful of what they convience you to NOT put in the contract & realize they will only follow through if you make them. Otherwise they do it their way & wait and do very little unless you make them follow through. I'm still waiting for Williams out of OKC and Tulsa to plant the shrubs and fence properly.....it's been 4 years...and it's in the contract. Good luck and be careful. The injections wells are the major problem. Why are we lettiing them dump saltwater back into our ground?"
LeeMcGraw 1 year ago
I question any politician who want's to forge ahead in our state. It will make a few people money. I have a copy of a check they use to entice people to sign over rights. I guess a 70 year old senator who now has it locked in could care less about the next generation...and the next....and the next. It is sad when due diligence is sidelined for the greenback. If you think Fracking is our saving grace for the local economy, then I say you are lazy and blind to our strengths. Drill for oil, offer incentives for going green, do something we know works with limited or no enviornmental effects. One shot at our ground water. That's all we have. Just because the gas is there dosen't mean it has to be taken irresponsibly. If I hit a golf ball off line at Hilton Head Island,(which I did), and it tucks under a gators hind leg, well, common sense says play another ball. Senators...play another ball.
Toda 1 year ago
Very good thread Lee...from the outset I have been opposed to fracturing anywhere in North Carolina. Senator Tillman as well as many of his constituents in Randolph County bask in the mindset that jobs will be created here in NC. Far from the truth...as with the Detention Center now overwhelming Carthage.
"would boost the economy of North Carolina as a whole by $453 million by the completion of all drilling in state"
Where did they arrive at those figures? Ouija Boards?
When speaking to the Randolph County Tea Party, one person who supported Senator Tillman's views on Fracking, spoke fervently about creating jobs in Randolph County. My question to him, "how many drillers do you know could drill possibly 10,000 feet on an angle"? Well he thought a while and said six that he knew of that drilled local water wells for years...Water Wells? Furthering the discussion, I asked him how many were drilling now...he thought a while, and started naming the "former" drillers who all had other jobs...so, i asked, "they are willing to give up their jobs to drill for Exxon"...no he replied, they bring in their own people....
That is the kind of mentality the reasonable people of North Carolina are facing when it comes to Fracking.
Perhaps the " $453 million by the completion of all drilling in state", would be in fuel allocations, food and lodging...other than that, surprise me with intellectual rational on how they came to those figures!
drefleury 1 year ago
I am petitioning the state government to end this nonsense. Please consider signing the petition and sharing it with friends on Facebook, etc. http://www.change.org/petitions/no-fracking-in-nc Thank you!
Toda 1 year ago
PART ONE OF THREE PARTS: "Aquifer Is More Sponge Than Lake BY CLARK COX: Senior Writer
Middendorf Aquifer: It’s an esoteric name, but that hasn’t kept people from talking about it.
The term, once used primarily by geologists and, to a lesser extent, by other scientists, is now bandied about regularly at public meetings. After last year’s drought, public concern arose about the state of the aquifer, which provides much of Moore County with its water.
Lack of knowledge about the aquifer hasn’t prevented some laymen from making statements about it. Some of these statements are incorrect — but, having been made in public meetings, they have made their way into print.
Few people understand what the aquifer is, how it got its name and what it does as well as Dennis Brobst, director of Moore County Public Utilities. He operates the systems that provide water to much of Moore County, including the Pinehurst system, where the matter has come in for much attention in recent years.
“We have a good idea of what the aquifer is, but it is not completely mapped, by any means,” Brobst says. “What we need at this point is a bunch of guys with ‘Ph.D.’ after their names — U.S. Geological Survey types, real hydrogeologists — to come in here and work about five years, compiling data and giving us a complete map.
“We’d know better then how much water was available to us in the aquifer, and whether we’re adding to it through rainfall and surface-water flow, or whether we’re taking away from it by pumping water out of our wells.”
Pinehurst Mayor Steve Smith agrees with Brobst, but he suggests that mapping the aquifer may take as long as 10 years.
“What we need is an in-depth study,” Smith says. “There’s no question about that. But such a study would be very expensive unless some university or the U.S. Geological Survey would be willing to pay for it. Usually the communities that would benefit from the study do the paying.”
Toda 1 year ago
PART TWO OF THREE: "Public discussion of the aquifer has led some to believe that it is a large underground lake underlying Pinehurst. Not so. Such subterranean pools are rare. Properly speaking, the Middendorf Aquifer is not the water, but the formation of rock and sand that holds it.
It’s more like a sponge than a lake bed, experts say. Water flows through the sponge, going from higher to lower pockets.
“The water flows downhill,” Brobst says. “In most places, there’s an upper aquifer and a lower aquifer. Water that is not disturbed will eventually find its way to the lower aquifer. We’re not breaking any laws of physics here.”
What Is the Aquifer?
Geologists describe the Middendorf Aquifer as sedimentary sandstone, sand and mudstone that has washed down to the North Carolina Coastal Plain from higher elevations to the west. It is mottled gray with an orange cast.
Pinehurst is at the “peak,” or highest point, of the aquifer.
“That’s a disadvantage in a way, in that the water naturally flows downhill, away from Pinehurst,” Brobst says. “But it’s an advantage in that the community at the peak of the aquifer determines its own fate. There are no communities ‘upstream’ to take usable water out of the aquifer.”
But being situated at the peak of the aquifer limits the amount of water available to Pinehurst. Much concern has been expressed in recent years because many people digging irrigation wells in Pinehurst — and there have been hundreds — have drilled through the upper aquifer and taken water from the village’s drinking-water supply in the lower aquifer.
“I’m convinced that there is an upper aquifer and a lower aquifer,” says George Hillier, mayor pro tem of Pinehurst. “I’m convinced that they exist, even though we don’t have good maps of them yet.”
How deep the upper aquifer and lower aquifer are depends on “where you drill a well,” Brobst says.
Most wells dug in the Pinehurst area strike water first at about 40 or 50 feet. There is almost always a layer of impermeable clay, below which is the “lower aquifer,” containing water that is purer and potable.
“We usually strike the lower aquifer at less than 200 feet deep,” Brobst says. “And 200 feet is shallow for a well. In Maryland, I was accustomed to wells that are 900 feet deep or deeper.”
Brobst says there always seems to be a layer of clay separating the two layers.
“But that clay is located at different depths,” he says. “That allows the water to flow from upper aquifer to lower. What I’m saying is that the upper and lower Middendorf aquifers are discontinuous.”
A peculiar characteristic of much of the aquifer also causes the water to flow unusually quickly away from Pinehurst: Studies have demonstrated that the sandstone of the Middendorf Aquifer is more porous than most. Scientists place the average porosity of sandstone at about 25 percent. Nearer the coast, the Middendorf’s porosity is over 40 percent.
Toda 1 year ago
PART THREE OF THREE: The Aquifer’s Extent
By any measure, the Middendorf Aquifer is huge.
It “runs out” somewhere around N.C. 211. Wells drilled north of that road often come up dry.
But from Pinehurst, the aquifer flows slightly downhill to Aberdeen — which gets water from its own system of wells — and Hoke, Scotland and Robeson counties and to the Fuquay-Varina area. It is still relatively near the surface in those areas.
Even Southern Pines and other Moore County communities that draw their water from Drowning Creek make use of the Middendorf Aquifer, Brobst says. That’s because the aquifer — along with surface water — feeds the creek.
“Surface water is just groundwater with no ground on top of it,” he says.
The aquifer continues to go downward throughout much of the Coastal Plain to Cape Hatteras on the Outer Banks, where several other aquifers overlay it. Through part of this area, the aquifer is known as the “Black Creek Aquifer,” after a prominent stream in the section where the aquifer was first described in North Carolina. But it is the same aquifer.
To the southwest, still going downward for the most part, the Middendorf Aquifer underlies much of South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, where it is known as the Tuscaloosa Aquifer. There is then some discontinuity, but there are “remnants” of the sedimentary formation making up the Middendorf Aquifer as far west as Texas, where it is commonly known as the Woodbine Aquifer.
The Aquifer’s Name
There is some disagreement about how the Middendorf Aquifer got its name.
Because Pinehurst sits on a high “outcrop” of the aquifer, Donald Van Roosen has suggested that the aquifer may have been named for a Middendorf family who came to the area in 1892, before the village was founded.
(Van Roosen is chairman of the Water Resources Committee of the Village of Pinehurst Planning and Zoning Board, which has studied the Middendorf Aquifer in some detail.)
Brobst says the aquifer must have been named for the geologist who discovered it. There have been prominent geologists named M.A. Middendorf and Emmo Middendorf, but they have both lived and worked in recent decades, after the term “Middendorf Aquifer” began to be used. And Emmo Middendorf was a European and probably never worked in this country.
The most prevalent theory is that the aquifer is named for the town of Middendorf, S.C., near which the formation that makes up the aquifer was first described. Most aquifers have such geographical designations.
Sure enough, a geologist named Berry is said to have described “a formation” near Middendorf, S.C., in 1913. The name “Middendorf Aquifer” has been in common scientific parlance since about that time.
Toda 1 year ago
LAST COMMENTS BY CLARK COX: Wonder what has changed over the last decade? Nothing! "Managing the Aquifer
Most geologists are of the opinion that the Middendorf Aquifer is being “recharged” by surface water at a rate sufficient to provide Pinehurst and surrounding communities with water for a long time to come.
But that’s only an opinion. The recharge rate is anybody’s guess. There are different points of view.
Brobst has one pretty good way of measuring the recharge rate. He does “static water-level tests,” measuring the level of water in wells after the pumps have been turned off.
Pinehurst has 21 public production wells, one of which has been closed because of contamination, and two test wells.
“Soon, we hope to have two more production wells,” Brobst says.
Each well, by state regulation, runs a maximum of 12 hours each day. Pumping at this rate, the wells can produce up to 1.6 million gallons a day (MGD) of water.
Pinehurst uses about 1.4 MGD in the winter months and as much as 3.5 MGD in the summer. Water purchased and piped in from other community systems makes up much of the difference.
Most of Pinehurst’s water usage is residential. (FirstHealth Moore Regional Hospital, the village’s largest water user, accounts for 100,000 to 110,000 gallons a day. Pinehurst Inc. irrigates its golf courses with impounded water from Lake Pinehurst.) But for a primarily residential community, that’s a lot of water usage. Much of it is for irrigation. If the irrigation is done right, most of the water evaporates or is taken up by plants. Very little goes back to the aquifer.
“We know the aquifer reasonably well, short of completely mapping it,” Brobst says. “If we space our public wells out and manage the aquifer carefully, it will be a viable source of water for years to come".
“But we need to manage that resource.”
Toda 1 year ago
The previous threads were copied and pasted from the August 2, 2003 Pilot article investigated and written by staff writer the late Clark Cox. The last investigative writer in my opinion that has worked for The Pilot Newspaper. Why has DENER changed their "opinions" in the face of so much derogatory information from state geologists. One word: POLITICS!
Now that the primaries are over, look out, you haven't seen bad yet, but it's coming to your town. Because you voted that way....
Toda 1 year ago
drefleury => there are several friends on FB who are forming groups to challenge legislation that will effect fracking in NC, Visit my page: Tommy Davis and I can link you up with several....Thanks for taking a stand...