To the Editor:
The Redwood Times article needs so many corrections.
To the oil and gas industry, which seeks to minimize the perceived impacts, "fracking" refers only to the actual moment in the extraction process where rock is fractured by pumping fluid at high pressure down the well bore.
Limiting the definition of fracking in this way also allows the oil and gas industry to include its long history of using hydraulic fracturing in traditional, vertical wells to create a false narrative about the safety of the new technology of "high-volume, high-pressure, horizontal hydraulic slick-water fracturing" (fracking).
It is only according to this carefully constructed definition that ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson could say, as he did in a Congressional hearing in 2011, that "...there have been over a million wells hydraulically fractured in the history of the industry, and there is not one, reported case of a freshwater aquifer having ever been contaminated from hydraulic fracturing."
And I charge the Division (DOGGR) with lack of regard for the intent of the Administrative Procedure under GOVERNMENT CODE SECTION 11346-11348 http://www.oal.ca.gov/Administrative_Procedure_Act.htm and interagency collaboration (with respective State Agencies for TSC, Water and Air Quality) under California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 22 Social Security.
Comments also suggests that DOGGR has falsely presented the nature of the activities covered by - and thereby the actual need for "new regulations" and thusly the applicability of said regulations, to the public and the State of California. From definitions that neither match what is effectively legal in terms of law nor the industry standards of related new technology processes, linguistics and terminology, Californians will be left considering the wrong regulations.
Stewart said some of the other chemical byproducts are found naturally in these deposits and are not manmade. NORM, Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material, additionally TENORM (technologically enhanced NORM); the NORM components include radium, uranium.
A USGS report that found that water from fracking was 3,609 times more radioactive than the federal limit for drinking water and 300 times more radioactive than a Nuclear Regulatory Commission limit for industrial discharges to water. http://www.timesonline.com/news/local_news/so-who-is-in-charge-of-fracking-wastewater-anyway/article_35fec56b-a13d-57ea-88d1-705a2c577129.html, http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/09/03/gas-well-waste-full-of-radium.html
The boreholes used in this process are commonly drilled 1.5 miles down, which is equivalent to five Sears Towers, or 7,700 feet. When the liquid is pumped down the pipe it causes fissures in the shale.
This is not a description of a High-Volume Horizontal Deviant Slick Water Fracking borehole. It is of a vertical well.
Wastewater from these wells has been known to contain fracturing-fluid additives and chemicals including the carcinogen benzene. These chemicals are found in everyday items including cleaning products and deodorant.
The article was a nice promotional piece on the American frac job. But will the real fracking please stand up.
Little River, CA