New Jersey Water Losses Enough to Frack 25 Gas Wells Per Day

The DRBC says it’s worried about loss of water used for hydraulic fracturing. Meanwhile, New Jersey water losses from public supplies daily dwarf fracking.

So much of what counts for public debate is pure demagoguery. It’s hardly a new phenomenon but it seems to have now infected official language as well as general public discourse. No better example exists than the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC) justification for its proposed fracking ban, which is a wholly political document. It’s also dishonest, as I explained here, but, more than that, it employs the classic fractivist maneuver of throwing out data without context or analysis to leave the impression of massive impact for that which is insignificant. That’s especially the case with water use.

Here’s what that DRBC justification says about water use (emphasis added):

The acquisition of water for use in HVHF may result in modifications to groundwater levels, surface water levels, and stream flows…

According to EPA, the median volume of water used per well fracturing event in Pennsylvania between January 2011 and February 2013 was 4.18 million gallons. EPA further reports that in at least 10 percent of cases, the water use in Pennsylvania during the same period was over 6.6 million gallons per well. EPA has reported that in the Marcellus formation in Pennsylvania, 82 to 90 percent of the base fluid used for hydraulic fracturing is fresh water that is naturally occurring and that the remaining base fluids (10 to 18 percent) are reused and recycled produced water.

Read more

https://naturalgasnow.org/new-jersey-water-losses-enough-frack-25-gas-wells-per-day/