The dark side of the natural gas boom

[Louisiana1976]

Victoria Switzer dreamed of a peaceful retirement in these Appalachian hills. Instead, she is coping with a big problem after a nearby natural gas well contaminated her family’s drinking water with high levels of methane.

Through no design of hers, Ms. Switzer has joined a rising chorus of voices skeptical of the nation’s latest energy push. “It’s been ‘drill, baby, drill’ out here,” Ms. Switzer said bitterly. “There is no stopping this train.”

snip

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/08/business/energy-environment/08fracking.html?em

[FBaggins]

1. A dark side price that almost certainly must be paid

A very reasonable argument can be made that paying a middle-eastern country $150/bbl for crude (plus the associated industry to refine and deliver that product)... hurts more people than potential contamination from natgas drilling.

Right now, natural gas is far cleaner and far cheaper than crude oil... and if it's produced here instead of in Dubai... that's a good thing too.

[safeinOhio]

3. I'd feel better about NG production

if the profit takers gave just compensation to individuals that pay the cost without hiring law firms to weasel out of it. Drill baby, just pay the fricking cost.

[FBaggins]

4. Certainly... but that isn't an option with the Saudis, is it?

If it's done here at least it can be dealth with here.

[Historic NY]

2. ah..... the fracking craze. The companies buy people off with big promises

and meanwhille...do damages beyond the foreseen. Its been all over parts of NY State, people are now beginning to get a clue.

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. Is New York’s Marcellus Shale Too Hot to Handle?

http://www.propublica.org/feature/is-the-marcellus-shale-too-hot-to-handle-1109

Is New York’s Marcellus Shale Too Hot to Handle?

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - November 9, 2009 5:10 am EST

As New York gears up for a massive expansion of gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale, state officials have made a potentially troubling discovery about the wastewater created by the process: It's radioactive. And they have yet to say how they'll deal with it.

The information comes from New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, which analyzed 13 samples of wastewater brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling and found that they contain levels of radium-226, a derivative of uranium, as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment and thousands of times the limit safe for people to drink.

The findings, if backed up with more tests, have several implications: The energy industry would likely face stiffer regulations and expenses, and have more trouble finding treatment plants to accept its waste -- if any would at all. Companies would need to license their waste handlers and test their workers for radioactive exposure, and possibly ship waste across the country. And the state would have to sort out how its laws for radioactive waste might apply to drilling and how the waste could impact water supplies and the environment.

What is less clear is how the wastewater may affect the health of New Yorkers, since the danger depends on how much radiation people are exposed to and how they are exposed to it. Radium is known to cause bone, liver and breast cancers, and the EPA publishes exposure guidelines for it, but there is still disagreement over exactly how dangerous low-level doses can be to workers who handle it, or to the public.

…

[Nihil]

6. Who cares? They can just blame it on TMI ... (n/t)

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. It should come as no surprise to people who know anything about radon levels

[joshcryer]

8. Kick (can't rec, didn't see until now).

[hunter]

9. Concentration of radioactive substances has always been a problem...

Sometimes the scales that form on oil and gas extraction equipment are so hot they have to be classified as radioactive waste.

In the bad old days a lot of this stuff got recycled, and metal recycling plants still catch occasional loads of radioactive drilling pipe and other equipment.

http://www.epa.gov/radiation/tenorm/oilandgas.html

[eppur_se_muova]

10. Um, wait ... what was the bright side?

Lots of old-school robber barons still pursuing the "Nature is inexhaustible" ethos?