Fracking strains water supplies in drought-stricken West

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The latest domestic energy boom is sweeping through some of the nation's driest pockets, drawing millions of gallons of water to unlock oil and gas reserves from beneath the Earth's surface.

Hydraulic fracturing, or the drilling technique commonly known as fracking, has been used for decades to blast huge volumes of water, fine sand and chemicals into the ground to crack open valuable shale formations.

But now, as energy companies vie to exploit vast reserves west of the Mississippi, fracking's new frontier is expanding to the same lands where crops have shriveled and waterways have dried up due to severe drought.

In Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, the vast majority of the counties where fracking is occurring are also suffering from drought, according to an Associated Press analysis of industry-compiled fracking data and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's official drought designations.

While fracking typically consumes less water than farming or residential uses, the exploration method is increasing competition for the precious resource, driving up the price of water and burdening already depleted aquifers and rivers in certain drought-stricken stretches.
http://www.standard.net/stories/2013/06/16/fracking-strains-water-supplies-drought-stricken-west

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[mbperrin]

2. Fracking in its present form has NOT been used for decades.

Older frac jobs were downhole explosives in the wellbore to shred the casing and loosen the formation around the vertical wellbore.

THIS is not that. And they're not just chemicals, they are some of the most vile acids to ever be invented.

And no one knows the extent of their penetration into water tables.

But we do know that EACH well takes several million gallons of water to frack, say 4 or 5 million gallons in Texas for most formations. So every three wells drilled means as much water as a city of 140,000 people uses in a day. Nearly 2000 rigs running means one rotation of the rigs onto new locations takes around 10 BILLION gallons of water to do. 30 days or less on a hole means around 12 rotations a year, so 120 BILLION gallons of water for these wells per year.

The industry needs to quit lying about this new technology, although they know if they do, even more people will become agitated enough to try to do something.

But let's at least start with some facts. Billions of gallons of our drinking water is being used to produced petro products.