101
wells tested annually. Few do. The data from the water analyses showed a lot of
people that there were contamination issues with their drinking water that pre-dated
any fracking in the neighborhood. It should be noted that in areas with intense shale
gas development and close well spacing, frack chemicals from previouslydeveloped, nearby shale wells could be in the “pre-drilling” groundwater samples.
Teasing these out of the data sets has been very challenging (Siegel et al. 2015).
Some landowners have tried to collect financial benefits from shale drillers
despite knowing that the gas in their groundwater was not caused by fracking. One
of the best-known cases occurred near Dallas-Ft. Worth in Parker County, Texas,
where the landowners claimed that a Barnett Shale well adjacent to their property
was responsible for introducing methane gas into their water well (Pope 2012).
This was in the early days of the shale boom, and the operator had not collected
a pre-drilling baseline sample, which was not a permit requirement in Texas at the
time. Nevertheless, the driller was certain that the gas was not from the Barnett and
the company refused to pay. The regional EPA office and the Texas Rail Road
Commission (TRRC) became involved. (The TRRC is the state agency in Texas that
oversees oil well permitting and drilling.) The two agencies disagreed on how to
deal with the problem and the Barnett well was ordered by the EPA to be shut-in
until the case was settled.
The operator ran chemical analyses on gas samples collected from both the
Barnett well and the landowners well. The gas chemistry analysis showed that the
nitrogen and carbon dioxide content of gas from the landowners well were completely different from the gas chemistry in the Barnett well. The gas sample from the
landowners well did closely match the chemistry from a gassy sandstone unit
located directly beneath the water supply aquifer. This rock formation was producing commercial amounts of gas from conventional wells located relatively close to
the landowners’ property. The regulatory agencies concluded that the water well
had been drilled a little too deep when first constructed and penetrated the top of this
gas-bearing formation, which was leaking gas into the groundwater. The much
deeper Barnett Shale was obviously not the source, and the operator was cleared of
all blame.
Things got rather ugly a bit later on when attorneys for the operator discovered
that the landowners had known about the presence of gas in their water well long
before the Barnett well was drilled. (Helpful tip: anything posted on social media
remains there forever.) They had been trying to obtain some easy money on the
advice of a consultant, who assumed the company would simply pay off the landowners to avoid the costs of a legal conflict. Truth be told, this had happened often
enough in the past. This time, however, it backfired and the operator sued the landowners for the revenue lost while the Barnett well had been shut in.
This case set a significant legal precedent in the shale gas and fracking business.
In the early days of the shale gas boom, operators would routinely pay off any random claim of environmental damage without an investigation. It was cheaper and
faster than engaging lawyers and having the whole thing go to court. However, after
the Parker County incident, industry woke up to the fact that some people were taking advantage of this policy. Whether or not the permit required it, companies began
6.1 Water Quality and Stray Gas
wells tested annually. Few do. The data from the water analyses showed a lot of
people that there were contamination issues with their drinking water that pre-dated
any fracking in the neighborhood. It should be noted that in areas with intense shale
gas development and close well spacing, frack chemicals from previouslydeveloped, nearby shale wells could be in the “pre-drilling” groundwater samples.
Teasing these out of the data sets has been very challenging (Siegel et al. 2015).
Some landowners have tried to collect financial benefits from shale drillers
despite knowing that the gas in their groundwater was not caused by fracking. One
of the best-known cases occurred near Dallas-Ft. Worth in Parker County, Texas,
where the landowners claimed that a Barnett Shale well adjacent to their property
was responsible for introducing methane gas into their water well (Pope 2012).
This was in the early days of the shale boom, and the operator had not collected
a pre-drilling baseline sample, which was not a permit requirement in Texas at the
time. Nevertheless, the driller was certain that the gas was not from the Barnett and
the company refused to pay. The regional EPA office and the Texas Rail Road
Commission (TRRC) became involved. (The TRRC is the state agency in Texas that
oversees oil well permitting and drilling.) The two agencies disagreed on how to
deal with the problem and the Barnett well was ordered by the EPA to be shut-in
until the case was settled.
The operator ran chemical analyses on gas samples collected from both the
Barnett well and the landowners well. The gas chemistry analysis showed that the
nitrogen and carbon dioxide content of gas from the landowners well were completely different from the gas chemistry in the Barnett well. The gas sample from the
landowners well did closely match the chemistry from a gassy sandstone unit
located directly beneath the water supply aquifer. This rock formation was producing commercial amounts of gas from conventional wells located relatively close to
the landowners’ property. The regulatory agencies concluded that the water well
had been drilled a little too deep when first constructed and penetrated the top of this
gas-bearing formation, which was leaking gas into the groundwater. The much
deeper Barnett Shale was obviously not the source, and the operator was cleared of
all blame.
Things got rather ugly a bit later on when attorneys for the operator discovered
that the landowners had known about the presence of gas in their water well long
before the Barnett well was drilled. (Helpful tip: anything posted on social media
remains there forever.) They had been trying to obtain some easy money on the
advice of a consultant, who assumed the company would simply pay off the landowners to avoid the costs of a legal conflict. Truth be told, this had happened often
enough in the past. This time, however, it backfired and the operator sued the landowners for the revenue lost while the Barnett well had been shut in.
This case set a significant legal precedent in the shale gas and fracking business.
In the early days of the shale gas boom, operators would routinely pay off any random claim of environmental damage without an investigation. It was cheaper and
faster than engaging lawyers and having the whole thing go to court. However, after
the Parker County incident, industry woke up to the fact that some people were taking advantage of this policy. Whether or not the permit required it, companies began
6.1 Water Quality and Stray Gas