Friday, the Lubbock Avalanche Journal ran this article http://lubbockonline.com/local-news/2013-01-30/council-consider-hydraulic-fracturing-city-lease . The gist of it is that the City of Lubbock owns some land that contains a producing oil well. The well operator has informed the city that it can increase the wells productivity by about 40 percent (from about $1 million/year production to $1.4 million/year) if the well is fracked, and the city council is going to vote to authorize the use of hydroclic fracturing.
Here's a primer on hydrolic fracturing for the uninitiated http://fracfocus.org/hydraulic-fracturing-how-it-works/hydraulic-fracturing-process
I want to point out some things I noticed about this article. I'm not sure the article shows bias, but I think the author could have done a better job to dispell the spectre of validity given the opponents of the proposed well fracking.
The author gives ear to several interested parties - it's a long article - but at the top of the list is David Hayes, director of the East Lubbock Community Development Corp. and resident of the neighborhood nearest the well. David is against the proposed fracking. He mentions earthquake danger and noise pollution as the main "cons" of the procedure. But hey, he's not a party pooper, he's just concerned for the "growth in the neighborhood."
First of all I'm not sure what the East Lubbock Community Development Corp does, but from the comments of its director I'm inclined to think it's a lefty political organization. Secondly, earthquakes? He thinks a little pressure created in a single oil well could cause earthquakes? It's almost as if he found out about the ultra-conservative pipe casing job the operator has planned to quiet objections over ground water contamination, and he's just raising the next best fear-mongering argument in the anti-fracking playbook. If earthquakes were a real possibility, I think we would have experienced them in Texas by now in some of the areas that have the maximum allowable wells drilled according to well spacing regulations. Here's an unofficial map of well locations in several sections (that's 640 acres squared) in Howard County, Texas, a place I'm familiar with after doing land research there during an internship after my first year of law school.
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They're not afraid of fracking in that area, in fact they appreciate it for the good jobs and revenue streams it creates. Despite the high density of wells in Howard County, no unusual tectonic activity has been reported from there. I am aware that there is speculation that well activity may have caused mild tremors in the Barnett Shale area, but the fears those speculations have raised have not gained much traction, leading me to believe they're likely unfounded. Plus the activity those speculators point to in the Barnett Shale is waste-water disposal wells, not fracking. It's my belief that the origins of the earthquake fears originated when a company in Britain accepted partial responsibility for tremors in the Blackpool region a couple of years ago. This caused Britain to implement a moratorium on fracking, which they recently lifted. http://edition.cnn.com/2012/12/13/business/uk-fracking
As for the noise, yes hydrolic fracturing does create a good bit of noise from the diesel engines pumping fluids, not unlike the engines on 18 wheelers. But that doesn't stop people from buying houses along major highways. And how close is the well to the neighborhood anyway? The article doesn't say, just that it is on the other side of a road. And the article quotes another man as being concerned for the students at Estacado High School, but it doesn't say how close the campus is to the well either. It also doesn't mention that it almost always takes less than a week's time to complete a frack job, and that it is not an ongoing process as the two concerned Lubbockites imply. With these considerations in mind, I highly doubt "noise pollution" is a reasonable objection to the proposeed frack job.
Nonetheless, despite the absurdity of the objections raised in the article, the comments section is an anti-fracking frenzie. I did, however, notice one commenter strike back at the doom-sayers and make some excellent points with his first hand experience of geology and fracking. That was refreshing.
Anyway, the "debate" (the quotation marks signify sarcasm) over fracking in Lubbock is likely to carry on for weeks. The city council here is prone to raising issues and allowing more time for citizen feedback than is needed. I anticipate the well will be fracked before summer, so I will probably only update the blog on this issue if something unusual happens, or maybe if there is a good concerned citizen rant at a city council meeting. Which wouldn't be all that unusual, but enjoyable. If you like that sort of thing. And I do.
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