Colorado sidestepped a battle over oil and gas drilling at the ballot this fall, but the controversy over drilling near populated areas was only put off until next year’s legislative session — assuming the governor’s task force can agree on recommended reforms.
That task force obviously deserves the very best data on the effects of drilling on the surrounding environment. Fortunately, the evidence keeps accumulating on a number of fronts, with three studies released in the past week alone that are worth noting.
Two of them — by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and researchers at Duke University — bear a similar message: hydraulic fracturing does not contaminate aquifers. Most experts have been saying as much, but anti-fracking activists dismiss the message.
“So far we can say pretty categorically that we have not seen escape of the gas from the shale formation into the overlying aquifers,” .
The DOE findings were consistent with the Duke study, and also involved the according to The Associated Press.
Drilling has been known to contaminate water through leaks from shoddy well construction. But that’s where good regulations and enforcement come into play.
However, the news isn’t all good for the energy industry. The other study, published in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America, suggests that induced earthquakes from the injection of wastewater into the ground in natural gas drilling may be more common than appreciated.
According to the study, “Between 2001 and 2013, there were 16 quakes registering a magnitude 3.8 or greater in the Raton Basin, which straddles New Mexico and Colorado. Between 1972 and 2001 there was one quake of that magnitude.”
A few months ago, the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission ordered changes at an injection well in Weld County because of seismic activity. In light of this new study, the COGCC must be especially vigilant in monitoring earthquakes and their possible link to nearby resource development — and act as quickly as it did this summer.
