Post Fracking Boom, where do we stand?

TimMurphy said:
There is no reason to keep punching holes when we produce more natural gas than we can consume.
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But we export more than we consume. Or we used to. Be lucky if anyone buys anything from us gor a while.

I could be missing it, as I don't follow either the industry propaganda or the environmentalist magazines but from a news stand point I have heard more about breaching od wells and aquafers than any flowing into surface water. These wells drill deep and then as much as 2 miles horizontally underground. Being able to light your tap water is an obvious drawback.
 
tomgamber said:
But we export more than we consume. Or we used to. Be lucky if anyone buys anything from us gor a while.

I could be missing it, as I don't follow either the industry propaganda or the environmentalist magazines but from a news stand point I have heard more about breaching od wells and aquafers than any flowing into surface water. These wells drill deep and then as much as 2 miles horizontally underground. Being able to light your tap water is an obvious drawback.
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Dear Tom,

Cove Point in Lusby MD was rebuilt expressly to export LNG to Russia because we had so much of the stuff spewing out of the ground, and we had nowhere to go with it.

It appears my point about punching holes and your point about paying customers may finally be coming to a head.

It's all kind of tangled, but make no mistake, you and I anyone else who cares will bear all the costs.

That's science!

Regards,

Tim Murphy 🙂
 
Meh, I'm not convinced.
Every country uses LNG and it is a major component in making gasoline.

If the Western world doesn't want to by it from the US in the quantities required to be useful to them, they can by it from Russia.
I highly doubt they will do that.

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The drilling boom might be over but Fracking it has just started.
 
Unless a brine truck crashes into a creek and spills, you aren't going to see an impact on trout streams from operation. Construction impacts, sure, that can happen. But that's true of anything and everything built.
 
laurelrun said:
Unless a brine truck crashes into a creek and spills, you aren't going to see an impact on trout streams from operation. Construction impacts, sure, that can happen. But that's true of anything and everything buit.
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I generally agree but there are other scenarios that can impact creeks. Explosions and fires burning down forests as one example. These are rare but can happen.

As of November 27, 2024, there are records of 221,186 drilled and proposed wells in Pennsylvania. Just one accident at one site will be a rare occurrence, yet it will happen eventually.
 
I don't know of any long term effects, but I sure am glad that they stopped putting new wells around my camp. There was about a 4 year stretch where there was a constant convoy of trucks going back and forth, often at unsafe speeds, on the dirt state forest road my camp is situated on. It was like living in the dust bowl. Also so many serene forest areas bulldozed flat. The whole scene is / was a disgusting display of human behavior and its the kind of thing that makes me not feel one ounce of remorse at the thought of a meteor hitting the reset button on this place.
 
So of course fracking and coal mining are different beasts, but once the "coal boom" went bust, the impacts are still felt for a very long time after. In terms of the impact on trout streams, I think fracking is orders of magnitude less impact than coal was. However, that is just one way to measure impact. There are many other ways, and some we likely do not even know of. For instance in Oklahoma, fracking has caused a lot of earthquakes where they previously did not happen.

What seems to be the most disappointing thing to me is that we did not really learn from lessons in the past.
 
One thing to consider, that I did not is water withdrawals for drilling.

I believe with the constant low water that would create an impact. With drilling going down I had not thought to look, are the withdrawals going down?
 
I have a good buddy who is in the industry.
He has answered many of my questions, and I learned some things. Although we often don’t agree.
They are still going strong. They just move around.
A lot of the drilled wells are plugged temporarily for future use, and many of the local wells are now being drilled again going deeper into the Utica formation. So, ongoing activity.
I feel the impacts are still yet to be determined, other than the obvious ( roads, clearing's, water withdrawals, and illegal brine dumping.
 
bringthepain said:
Politics are not allowed discussed on this forum please sir
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Yet you yourself posted:
bringthepain said:
The state senate passed a bill saying the federal govt should deal with this issue. For their efforts the state senators will get healthcare for life at your expense!

What a solution!! Your tax dollars at work my friends!
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The rules are the same for everyone. You are the first to call out others and report them to the moderators when you believe they disagree with your political views, yet you are one of the worst offenders for bringing politics into this site. You have been warned about this numerous times.

As you said "Politics are not allowed (to be) discussed on this forum, sir."

Oh, leave the moderating to the moderators..............sir.
 
Tabasco-Joe said:
So, the question I posed is how did the trout streams fare?
I get the impression there hasn't been any long term impact.
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Not to the streams themselves, that I have read about. Just the clearing of the woods for the pads, which is unsightly.

I think I do recall a few cases of Flowback Fluid (water, sand, and chemicals), used in fracking being dumped illegally after the process. Brine as well.
 
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wildtrout2 said:
Not to the streams themselves, that I have read about. Just the clearing of the woods for the pads, which is unsightly.

I think I do recall a few cases of Flowback Fluid (water, sand, and chemicals), used in fracking being dumped illegally after the process. Brine as well.
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Early on in PA there were discharges into larger streams and rivers. Drilling companies withheld fracking material composition for various reasons. PA added regulations and requirements for discharges. I'm not aware of any long term impacts to rivers as a result.
 
Do you think there is any impact on wild trout populations, other aquatic life, and water quality in the Allegheny National Forest and nearby areas from oil and gas production?
 
troutbert said:
Do you think there is any impact on wild trout populations, other aquatic life, and water quality in the Allegheny National Forest and nearby areas from oil and gas production?
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I think in relatively isolated instances, such as this or that first order trib, or maybe affect a watershed size of up to 5 or 10 sq. miles or so, yeah. But broadly, no. Not like coal mining killing whole river sized watersheds.

ANF is a weird place in general though. Compared to the rest of PA anyway. I feel like the rest of the state, where there are wild Trout anyway, has a similar feel and look to it. NWPA is like a different planet. There’s just stuff up there I can’t easily explain. Why certain streams are so good, and why other similar sized ones with similar geology nearby aren’t. It’s a fun place to explore…”ya never know what you’re gonna get”.
 
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