Moratorium Expires

Winona County's moratorium on Silica Sand mining expired on May 1st. With the information gathered, the county's Planning and Environmental Services committee has been able to develop a comprehensive plan for the entire silica sand mining process, including a detailed application process for both new and currently operating businesses to be approved by the county. Several completed application packets are expected in the next few days. Silica sand is used in the fracking process as both a separation agent (splitting the rock) and a porous filter for the extraction of the natural fuels.

Fracking and Wildlife

The construction of roads, drilling pads and pipelines for thousands of drilling operations are adding up and impacting rural communities and affecting America’s landscape. The clearing of thousands of acres of forests is leading to reduced and fragmented habitats and other potentially life-threatening impacts for wildlife.By destroying the habitats of plants and animals, we are making changes to our ecosystem, many of which can not be undone. In the U.S. alone, over 1.2 million previously drilled wells have been Fracture stimulated, and another 300,000 are set to be drilled in 2012. This amounts to major damage to various ecosystems, and changes in the atmosphere as well through leaked methane making it to the surface. Another problem is the transportation of the toxic "used fluids" from the fracturing process. There have been 5 recorded spills since 2009, 4 on public roads and 1 at a drilling site. Luckily none of those documented cases caused major damage, but with the growing amount of wells and therefore fluid being transported there is an ever present danger of major environmental impact.

Fracking and Water

One of the major dangers of Fracking is contamination of groundwater sources. According to the gas companies, there is no risk of groundwater contamination for a number of reasons. First, most Fracture wells are located miles below the bottom of the water table, they are said to be drilled into impermeable rocks, and the drills are cased with steel and concrete casing. However, it is hard to tell whether or not there are flaws or failures in the current system, and sonar testing for impermeable rock is not always 100%. There have been isolated documented cases of home/landowners being able to light their tap water on fire. While these instances are extreme, there are major concerns as to how the process affects groundwater. These concerns are both environmental and health related. Many bottled water companies have begun promoting the "purity" of bottled water as the only safe alternative to possibly contaminated water. However this poses its own set of problems. There is the added increase of waste in landfills, as efforts to promote recycling often fall short, as well as the fact that many water companies take their water directly from the tap, rather than their 'ultra pure' sources. There are multiple research projects currently being conducted to find the best ways to properly drill with the minimal negative impact.

The Public Relations Side

Many companies are having a hard time to positively promote the Fracking process, to both investors/customers, and possible land owners above wells. With the many possible issues that have come to surface, companies like Exxon Mobile and Chesapeake Energy are looking for alternative ways to positively promote their business.“I don’t think ExxonMobil has faced an environmental or regulatory or political challenge as material to their business as they do now with fracking, certainly not since Valdez,"said  Steve Coll, a chronicler of Exxon, to POLITICO in a recent interview.

“They haven’t bet the house, but they’ve made a pretty substantial investment in fracking,” he added. “And I do think that the industry and ExxonMobil in a way is in denial a little bit about how communities view the risks, the cost-benefit equation of fracking.”

One of the main things that these companies are trying to do when convincing the average americans about the positives of fracking is rather than mass produced public media announcements, they are sending representatives to hold town hall meetings and speak directly with community members.

It is important that these companies make every attempt to show the world of their good intentions and practices, as major financial pieces are in the balance. For example Exxon Mobile spent $31 Billion to acquire a texas based fracking company that is considered to be State of the Art in terms of technology.

Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0412/75756.html#ixzz1tjy8nock

Frac Sand Q&A

If you would like to understand more about the frac-sand business in Winona, you can Click Here

More news from winona!

Here is more information about protesting that happened today in Winona, as well as information from last night's City Board Meeting! View the video and article here!

Fracking in Winona

The article provided in the link poses some of the issues and solutions on Sand-Frac mining right here in Winona County! Pretty interesting to see it happen in the backyard!Click here to read more!!

The Positives of Hydraulic Fracking! According to....

Many companies participate in the search and recovery of deep shale liquids ( oil, natural gas, unconventional fuels).  Through my limited amount of research, I have found that Chesapeake Energy Company of Oklahoma City is a prominent player in the fracking game. I was able to find lots of information based on their specifications for wellboring, as well as depths of the rock, and even the configuration of their surface sites. Much of the following information has been taken directly or paraphrased from their website, and I take no credit for the information posed. According to Chesapeake, "Properly conducted modern fracking is a highly engineered, controlled, sophisticated and safe procedure." They state that in order to pass inspection from various state organizations, they are required to put in effective steel and concrete barriers to protect the ground water reserves. also the average well is 1.5 miles deep, which is "thousands of feet below the water table." They also point out that they utilize sensitive data monitoring equipment to monitor the pressure levels when fracturing, to keep them at safe and viable levels. Lastly, all water they use in the process is properly bought and permitted. This allows for regulating agencies to monitor and evaluate the level of impact a specific well has on the enviornment.

What the Frack?!

For this blog, I plan to focus in on a relatively new way of mining called "Hydraulic Fracturing" or "Fracking." This is a technique that is used to gather natural gas or other fossil fuels from underground reservoirs that would otherwise be unreachable. The process is rather simple. Once a wellbore hole is drilled to the reservior, they inject a fluid mixture at high pressure to create fractures in the rock. Then they add sand to this mixture to keep the fractures open while the wanted materials are extracted. There are two types of Fracking. The first is called Low Volume Fracturing, which uses between 20,000 and 100,000 gallons of the fluid. It is used on areas that are already highly permeable, such as sandstone, and is sometimes called well stimulation. The second type is called High Volume Fracturing. This method does retrieve considerable amounts of otherwise inaccessible fuel reserves, but it can come at a cost. The process can require up to 3 Million gallons of fracturing fluid which can include acids, dissolved nitrogen, and solid particles to fracture and maintain the opening. There are many environmental concerns regarding this. The most important worry is groundwater contamination, either of the fracturing fluid or the released fuels. Other concerns include the migration of these fluids and gases to the surface, the release of gases into the atmosphere, and the mining process itself. In the coming weeks and months, I will go more in depth into this story, citing both positives and negatives, in hopes to gain a better understanding of this process. Hopefully you will be able to come to your own conclusions as well based on the information I provide!