The wells – which had helped fuel the growth of South Florida by eliminating the need for expensive water treatment plants -- had passed rigorous EPA and state evaluation throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Inspections showed they were structurally sound. As Class 1 wells, they were subject to some of the most frequent tests and closest scrutiny.
Yet they failed.
The wells' designers would have calculated what is typically called the "zone of influence" — the space that waste injected into the wells was expected to fill. This was based on estimates of how much fluid would be injected and under what pressure.
In drawings, the zone of influence typically looks like a Hershey's kiss, an evenly dispersed plume spreading in a predictable circular fashion away from the bottom of the well. Above the zone, most drawings depict uniform formations of rock not unlike a layer cake.
Based on modeling and analysis by some of the most sophisticated engineering consultants in the country, Florida officials, with the EPA's assent, concluded that waste injected into the Miami-area wells would be forever trapped far below the South Florida peninsula.
"All of the modeling indicated that the injectate would be confined in the injection zone," an EPA spokesperson wrote to ProPublica in a statement.
But as Miami poured nearly half a billion gallons of partly treated sewage into the ground each day from the late 1980s through the mid 1990s, hydrogeologists learned that the earth – and the flow of fluids through it – wasn't as uniform as the models depicted. Florida's injection wells, for example, had been drilled into rock that was far more porous and fractured than scientists previously understood.
"Geology is never what you think it is," said Ronald Reese, a geologist with the United States Geological Survey in Florida who has studied the well failures there. "There are always surprises."
Other gaps have emerged between theories of how underground injection should work and how it actually does. Rock layers aren't always neatly stacked as they appear in engineers' sketches. They often fold and twist over on themselves. Waste injected into such formations is more likely to spread in lopsided, unpredictable ways than in a uniform cone. It is also likely to channel through spaces in the rock as pressure forces it along the weakest lines.
Petroleum engineers in Texas have found that when they pump fluid into one end of an oil reservoir to push oil out the other, the injected fluid sometimes flows around the reservoir, completely missing the targeted zone.
"People are still surprised at the route that the injectate is taking or the bypassing that can happen," said Jean-Philippe Nicot, a research scientist at the University of Texas' Bureau of Economic Geology.
Conventional wisdom says fluids injected underground should spread at a rate of several inches or less each year, and go only as far as they are pushed by the pressure inside the well. In some instances, however, fluids have travelled faster and farther than researchers thought possible.
In a 2000 case that wasn't caused by injection but brought important lessons about how fluids could move underground, hydrogeologists concluded that bacteria-polluted water migrated horizontally underground for several thousand feet in just 26 hours, contaminating a drinking water well in Walkerton, Ontario, and sickening thousands of residents. The fluids travelled 80 times as fast as the standard software model predicted was possible.
According to the model, vertical movement of underground fluids shouldn't be possible at all, or should happen over what scientists call "geologic time": thousands of years or longer. Yet a 2011 study in Wisconsin found that human viruses had managed to infiltrate deep aquifers, probably moving downward through layers believed to be a permanent seal.
See what we're tweeting about
25 Comments
Add CommentFossil fuel companies: "We're going to squeeze every last drop of oil out of this continent, even if it takes the life of every man, woman & child."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy don't they just set off a nuke in Yellowstone and get it over with? The Indians should have kicked the Spanish and other Europeans back to the old world. Hard.
Maybe this is the answer.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"The cavitation hydrovibrator is a proprietary green technology that operates using pure water, without the use of any of the 200 chemicals traditionally used in fracking that damage the environment and contaminate water tables. The cavitation hydrovibrator is mounted in a drilling line and inserted into a vertical or horizontal borehole at the appropriate stratum level. Pressured water is fed to the cavitation hydrovibrator inlet through the drilling line using a drill pump. "
http://smarteconomy.typepad.com/smart_economy/2009/12/a-green-alternative-to-chemicalbased-hydraulic-fracturing-or-fracking-for-shale-gas-drillingcavitati.html
This is the kind of misquoted OPINION article that create a major division about what is really occurring - There are few if any evidence where a fraking well fluids contaminated existing water wells. There have been chemical spills and they were cleaned up.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author says there are 680,000 underground waste and injection wells. There are not 680,000 wells from fraking he is mixing cherries and watermelons.
The underground waters of the geysers in the National parks are much more toxic than any industrial or fraking liquid. They boil up from the depths of earth in molten rocks carrying acids, metals, and are high in mineral content. yes, Mother nature makes some toxic teas all on her own.
The problem with your comment, Profitsup... is that it lacks common sense, because people do not live near geysers, and other natural toxic areas.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd the proof of water contamination is showing up all over the US and other parts of the world.
People are not stupid. Shame on you, making money by poising people.
Sorry, poisoning... spelled wrong.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are just too many reck-less, greedy, con-artist standing in the way of a better life for everyone.
There's cleaner ways to do almost everything.
Well as long as "Profitsup" nothing will be done about this travesty. As we have recently learned, corporations are "people" but are MANDATED to have NO Heart! They are actually expected to BREAK THE LAW if it's cheaper than complying and it increases their profit. By law they must do whatever they can to make a profit for their "investors". Sick,Sick ,Sick!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thispriddseren (comment above) states the problem sarcastically but correctly; CEOs certainly will not be around to have to deal with this time-bomb and and their very rich descendants will rule over the mutant public from their sterilized under-ground nuclear bunkers.
The article carefully leaves one issue unaddressed, that is that the fracking protocols that were used on these older wells are several generations old. New technology is already addressing many of these concerns. Soon the type of technology cited by bernardpalmer above will be replacing the chemical mix in current use. Why the change? because it is economically more efficient to do so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProfitsup wrote, "The author says there are 680,000 underground waste and injection wells. There are not 680,000 wells from fraking he is mixing cherries and watermelons."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe author, Abrahm Lustgarten, wrote, "There are more than 680,000 underground waste and injection wells nationwide, more than 150,000 of which shoot industrial fluids thousands of feet below the surface."
Lustgarten NEVER claimed that 680,000 wells were from fracking. He said there were over 150,000 wells used for "industrial fluids." These are Class 1 and Class 2 wells (mostly Class 2 wells). Fracking waste water is pumped into Class 2 wells.
Profitsup, do you know the number of wells used for fracking waste water injection? If so, please provide your number and source.
Maybe the article should have been better titled. Very little was mentioned about fracking through the entire article. The article primarily addressed the injection of all industrial waste water (Class 1 and 2 wells). But, does it really matter? The concern is with the integrity of injection wells which is an issue with fracking and the disposal of waste water from fracking (which the contaminants -- benzene, etc, -- are considered proprietary).
As the author of this article, I just want to clarify: Nowhere does this article discuss fracking wells or say that there are 680,000 fracked wells (there are actually many more) but if you read what I have published today it is about a different topic really -- waste across all industries that is handled under a separate, federally regulated program. Geologists are concerned that the fractures underground are increasing permeability for all underground fluids. I appreciate your interest and taking the time to comment.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks, it was a fine article. Clearly it isn't easy to even do a good piece on something about which there are so many unknowns. At least it is certainly hard to come to definitive conclusions. I think you successfully communicated the primary message, that there's a lot of optimistic thinking and severe pressure to just declare it all 'not a problem' when indeed it could be anything from a localized problem in a few areas all the way up to a vast ecological catastrophe in the making.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI must say, I'm not optimistic. We're far too cavalier about dumping waste about (and many other things), but I guess we'll see...
The problem with wellbores in gas fields is that, as they age, the wellbore becomes a pathway for gas to rise into groundwater. This can occur outside the outer cement casing, since the cement does not adhere to the surrounding rock, and, over time, it shrinks and cracks, enabling gas to vent up the wellbore. This is a common problem in fields where wellbores go through multiple shallow gas bearing formations that are above shale gas targets - such as the Marcellus in NE Pa. The wellbore does not have to be a gas well. An injection well will suffice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo then the title was meant to grab people's attention with a loaded word but not meant to convey the subject matter?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOr it could be that the title of the article was chosen correctly, but the introductory and concluding paragraphs were poorly written by not conveying a message of where the greatest risks exist: disposing of proprietary (i.e. secret) fracking fluids.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHere's an EPA study that includes info on fracking waste:
http://www.epa.gov/hfstudy/HF_Study__Plan_110211_FINAL_508.pdf
An individual who puts poison in water supplies is termed a terrorist and is sent to prison. The same justice should be applied to frackers...Or is it a case that the rich escape justice?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe title of Lustgarten's excellent article is so extremely reserved that it borders on tongue-in-cheek. This would more accurately be titled "Fracking Wastewater Wells ARE Poisoning Aquifers and Drinking Water".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBribery of public officials is routine business in the USA, hence the missing EPA data and an agency that destroys evidence for the sake of the oil, chemical, and waste disposal companies. Pass a bribe to your congress person to get them to lean on the agency that collects evidence of malfeasance and harm done to the public. This is the usual method to avoid being prosecuted for crimes done by those that have the means.
In view of the spotty integrity on the part of government agencies, any reasonable person will anticipate that geologists hired by oil companies and others selling wastewater fracking are screened to ensure compliance and spinelessness in the service of corporate dishonesty. In my view, their reassuring lies about the possibility of their poison flowing into our aquifers are worth no more than the waste itself.
These corporations must be dissolved as a public menace so that the individuals that have poisoned our water for their personal enrichment are held personally accountable for every man, woman, and child that they have sickened and murdered as well as property damages ensuing from aquifer contamination.
MAY pose a risk? I guess it wasn't IMPORTANT until people in L.A. realized their water was being poisoned?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAsk the thousands of people in Pennsylvania whose water that they depend on for drinking, preparinbg meals and washing their children what to do, now that their water is FLAMMABLE.
This is another of those environmental stories where the interested parties all take their perfunctory places in the debate. The oilies claim vast knowledge and technical capability, the enviros scream, emotion and passion and the regulators play catch-up. Why can't there be another approach, where everyone gives up their role in favor of having EPA name a technical review panel that makes regulatory recommendations that everyone understands. Such a panel might begin with a clear description of what is known and what is unknown, make a list of priority data collections and analysis needed to resolve a priority listing of the unknowns and then everyone would at least be on the same page.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's just too boring, not to mention expensive, to wait for everyone to repeat the same boring script before buckling down to the science.
GasFrac has a process that does not use water, therefore no waste water to be concerned about. check at gasfrac.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYup, tharter, I'm not optimistic either. But, as they say, "money talks, bs walks," and that has produced the dangerous world we're busily creating. It's our kids & grand kids who will be paying the price, though. Anyone see the movie "Idiotcracy"? A very relevant flick that was almost still-born. It came out in 2006, but for I-can't-remember-what reason, never made it to the theaters. I did find a DVD of it at Barnes & Noble, though.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHelp us keep Ireland Frack Free. Anyone can sign this. Thanks http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/northern-ireland-no-fracking-required-here.html
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttps://dontfractureillinois.org/
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy friends and I have been very busy shining the light on the problems this practice creates. We're attempting to keep frackers from creating wastewater wells in the sandstone near the New Madrid and Walbash faults located between the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers in Southern Illinois. I'm very excited about what your research shows.
Ooops. Wabash
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Fracking shale moves water that could meet up with naturally occurring fractures in sandstone and result in faster movement to the surface [aquifers]," Myers said.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://truth-out.org/news/item/9076-the-potential-for-fracking-fluids-to-reach-freshwater-aquifers
EnergyPoint Research wrote a piece about risks associated with the handling of water a couple months back. Rather than recount it's points in this forum, here's the link...http://energypointresearch.com/oilfield-insights/archives/705
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGreat article!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this