Fracking unknown

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been a controversial topic in Butte County—and the nation—over the past year. The process used to extract oil and gas deposits from underground shale formations is seen as both a way to help America become energy independent but also as a serious threat to the environment.

On Tuesday (March 24), the matter was addressed during a 90-minute talk by Chico State geology professor Todd Greene, who began by asking, “Why should be care about fracking?”

Greene, who once worked for the oil industry, last month addressed the Butte County Board of Supervisors as it considered adopting a ban on fracking, which didn’t happen. His talk on campus, attended by about 75 people, mostly students and anti-frackers, was sponsored by Chico State’s Association of Geological and Environmental Students and the Center for Water and the Environment.

Greene’s theme Tuesday was fairly impartial, but he made it clear that there is not nearly enough scientific research and resulting data available for a practice that has been going on since the 1940s and has greatly accelerated in the past decade.

Fracking involves shooting a high-pressure solution of water, sand and chemicals into a drilled well, which then moves horizontally into rock formations, releasing the oil and gas lodged there. The solution is then either disposed of or stored.

“We could say it is evil, but we need to know what is evil. We need to define it,” Greene said. “Anyone who has opinions about fracking should know what it is.”

Given the economic value tied to the extraction of gas and oil, he said, the practice of fracking isn’t going to go away.

“There’s certainly going to be more exploitation of these types of resources,” he said, “so we better get on board with what it is and what we are dealing with.”

There are more than 1 million hydraulic fracturing wells in the United States, he said, with most concentrated in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming. The practice is beginning to take off in California, with 85 percent of the state’s fracking wells in Kern County.

Major concerns are related to water resources, he said, which include pollution of underground water basins, surface oil spills and problems with disposal of the wastewater. There is also the danger of contaminating drinking water by poorly built wells.

“The biggest threat right now to scientists is that there are huge data gaps,” he said. “There is virtually no information in California about [the wastewater] in terms of the chemistries in them or how they’ve changed over the years. There is almost no information. So the data gaps are probably science’s biggest hindrance in trying to prove or show or investigate fracking.”

Environmental oversight of the practice is not a federal issue and policies vary state by state. In October 2012, California Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 4 by Sen. Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills. The bill reportedly imposes the most stringent regulations in the country on fracking and other oil and natural gas production.

“Oil companies will not be allowed to frack or acidize in California unless they test the groundwater, notify neighbors and list each and every chemical on the Internet,” Pavley said at the time the bill was signed. “This is a first step toward greater transparency, accountability and protection of the public and the environment.”

Critics say the bill does not go far enough and have called for an outright ban.

Greene said locally there are active gas wells in Butte, Glenn, Colusa and Sutter counties, but there are no fracking wells currently operating in Butte.

“We are talking about a few wells in Butte County, most of which are for gas storage,” he said. “Very few of the 32 wells here are actually in production and none of them have been fracked.”