Natural Gas Drilling and

Drinking Water

By Matt Cortese
Mentor: Mr. Ron Brink
Broome County Health Department

Goals and Objectives of the Internship

Develop an understanding of natural gas drilling technologies, including how they

work and potential consequences for human health in NYS and Broome County
Research hydraulic fracturing, including chemicals used in drilling fluids. This also
includes how they are used in the drilling process and public health implications
Digitize and update baseline data on groundwater quality in Broome County
Develop a comprehensive list of chemicals, from a range of independent sources,
and recommend water testing parameters for private and public water supplies
Review and understand the NYS DECs Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact
Statement (sGEIS) Final Draft on Hydraulic Fracturing and Horizontal Drilling

Natural gas well

drilling in Enfield, NY

Presentation Outline
Natural gas drilling in New York State and
Broome County
The drilling process in depth
horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing
Public health risks and worst practices
Results and Conclusions: Best practices,
data, and recommendations to protect
public health
Drilling practices
Baseline database for Broome County
Water well testing parameter list
A Natural Gas Drilling Pad
Source: ALL Consulting

U.S. Gas Shale Deposits

Source: ALL Consulting

The Marcellus Shale

The Marcellus shale is a Middle
Devonian-aged black shale deposit
(~390 million years old)
It lies completely within the NE
United States and ranges from West
Virginia to southern New York State
The Marcellus may be
the largest reserve of
natural gas in North
America (in its entirety)

Broome County: 390 mya and today

Source: Dr. Ron Blakey

Recently, intense
interest from energy
companies with advent
of new technologies
Like many shales, it
formed from decaying
organic matter at the
bottom of a shallow
inland sea

G
: AAP
e
c
r
u
So

Source: NYS DEC

Gas Wells and the Millennium Pipeline in

Broome County
= Millennium Pipeline

The Drilling Process: Horizontal Drilling

Horizontal drilling is a drilling technique where the well bore is turned
from a vertical drilling position to horizontal at the depth of the target
formation (such as the Marcellus) in order to improve production
Hydraulic fracturing is often used with horizontal drilling (see diagram)
Horizontal drilling increases productivity because the well bore comes
into contact with more natural gas-containing vertical fractures, which
allows more gas to travel to the well (see picture)

Horizontal wells require more

water than their vertical
counterparts, but can reduce
the number
Drilling
is oriented of drilling pads on
vertically
until the
the surface
shale is reached
Horizontal drilling laterals can
Then
well bore
extend
for up to a mile
turns at depth of
underground!
target
formation
Vertical natural fractures, called joints by
geologists, in Devonian shale.
Source:
Geology.com
Source: Geology.com

Horizontal

Vertical

Marcellus Shale drill core from

West Virginia, 3.5 inches in
diameter, containing a calcitefilled vertical natural fracture.
Source: Daniel Soeder, USGS

Horizontal (left) and Vertical

(right) well completions note
how the horizontal well crosses
more vertical fractures
Source: ALL Consulting

The Drilling Process: Hydraulic Fracturing

Hydraulic fracturing is a drilling
technique where water and additives
are pumped under high pressure into a
completed well
Used to blast open fractures in fossil
fuel-bearing rock (such as the
Marcellus)
increases the permeability of the gasbearing rock by creating conductive
passages
allows more gas to collect and flow to
the well through the fractures

This process is nicknamed fracking or

well-stimulation, or a frac job by the
energy industry
Hydraulic fracturing is one of the key
technologies that makes gas extraction
from impermeable shales cost-effective

The Drilling Process: Hydraulic Fracturing

The hydraulic fracturing process is a complex, multi-stage process, which can be
broken down into several steps
The first step in the hydraulic fracturing process is bringing in materials, mostly fresh
water, onto the drilling pad this is done via a pipeline or tanker trucks.
The water is then held in lined holding ponds or in steel containers for later use in the
multi-stage hydraulic fracturing operation
Pipes Fresh
Lined
for pumping
Water Supply
fresh water
Pit from
to a the
frac job
Source:
AXPC Shale Development in PA
Marcellus

Hydraulic Fracturing of a Marcellus Shale Well

in West Virginia (notice yellow holding tanks)

Source: ALL Consulting, 2008

Source: Chesapeake Energy Corporation, 2008

A fluid transport truck used for

transporting water or other additives
Source: FSMF Resources

The Drilling Process: Hydraulic Fracturing

While equipment and fluids for hydraulic fracturing are
brought onsite, the well is drilled and pressure tests of
pumping equipment are conducted.
After tests are complete, an acid treatment is done in
order to clean the well bore of drilling mud and dissolve
certain rocks (like limestone)
an acid treatment involves pumping concentrated
hydrochloric acid into the well

A pumper truck (above)

and acid truck (below)
Source: Producers Service Corporation

After acid treatment, a slickwater pad, of frictionreducing agents is pumped into the well.
This allows the proppant and other fluids to flow
more easily into fractures and helps to reduce pressure
Typical friction-reducers are potassium chloride,
petroleum distillates, or polyacrylamide
Other additives are also added to control fouling from
biological or chemical processes
Biocides/slimicides are used for bacterial/slime growth
that can reduce well conductivity
Scale inhibitors, corrosion inhibitors, and oxygen
scavengers are used for chemical fouling

A fracturing fluid
trailer Source: Donnan.com

The Drilling Process: Hydraulic Fracturing

After the slickwater pad and other additives are injected,

a series of proppant stages is initiated
A proppant is a material used to prop open new
fractures to maintain fluid conductivity for the gas
The proppant mixture is typically water, sand, and a
viscosifier called a gellant

The proppant stages do most of the rock fracturing

As hydraulic pressure is increased, proppant and
gellant is forced into the newly formed cracks

A typical gellant is a complex carbohydrate that is

polymerized to form a reversibly viscous gel
Gellants are typically composed of modified guar
gum (CMHPG) or modified cellulose (HEC)
Can be polymerized in a pH-sensitive complex with
a metal ion (such as borate or zirconium)
This system is used to help carry proppant further
into the induced fractures, and is useful because the
viscosity of the gellant is easily pH-controlled
A chemical called a breaker (oxidizer or strong acid)
is used to lower the viscosity of the gel for extraction

Source: ProPublica

Sand truck delivering proppant

Source: Cudd Energy Services

What does natural gas drilling have to

do with
?

Shale gas development both requires significant amounts of

water and is conducted in proximity to valuable surface and
ground water U.S. Dept. of Energy Shale Gas Primer, 2009

Water Usage:
Hydraulic fracturing: requires the most water of any drilling
technique (up to 5 million gallons of fresh water from local
sources) and uses a variety of proprietary chemical additives
Multi-well drilling pads and minimal pad spacing: heavy activity
(and thus demand for water) concentrated in one area
Water Quality:
Additives: including acids, surfactants, scale/corrosion inhibitors,
biocides, proppants, gellants, breakers, and others are used in
hydraulic fracturing, many of which may present health hazards
Produced water or flowback: water that is retrieved after
fracturing is extremely salty and may be radioactive
Fluid recovery: it is not uncommon for as little as 10-15% of
injected fluid to be recovered
Water treatment of flowback: many management plans call for
disposal of fluids in municipal water treatment facilities that cant
handle the brine/radioactivity

Aerial view of t
gas field, uppe
developed Jr G
valley, Wyomin

Flowback and Water Treatment

Flowback, also known as produced water, is the waste fluid that is returned to the
surface after hydraulic fracturing
Produced water contains fracturing fluids and formation waters (typically brines)
These present potentially major health hazards if improperly managed or if
there are accidents, such as surface spills, natural disasters, leaks, etc.
Brines are ubiquitous in flowback because of the marine origins of the shale
Heavy metals and naturally-occurring radioactive materials (NORMs) may also
be present in flowback, posing further potential health risks
Produced water must be properly disposed of to prevent public health problems
Many municipal wastewater treatment plants have been designated for disposing
of flowback, but are not equipped or designed to handle these fluids, particularly
because of high Total Dissolved Solids (from brine), NORMs, & other chemicals
Underground injection is another option for disposal of produced water, but may
also create longer-term health risks

Flowback (left) to distilled water (right)

Source: 212 Resources

Copyright, 2008 The New York Times

Worst Practices

Public Health Best Practices and

Recommendations
Baseline testing
Testing of water wells before drilling begins is
essential for both liability purposes and health
reasons
Closed-loop (pitless) drilling systems
Flowback goes into steel tanks (not lined pits)
and is purified and recycled onsite
Is much safer than pits since waste is handled
immediately and only solid waste is shipped
Setback distances and secondary containment
Setback distances are a buffer area between drilling sites
and surface water
Secondary containment and spill detection methods, along
with setbacks, are important to mitigate contamination risk

NYS DEC regulates drilling operations in NYS

Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement
sGEIS) in Final Review stages at present

Water Testing
Source: Community
Science Institute

Closed-loop drilling site in Colorado

Photo credit: Dan Randolph

Baseline Database

I compiled and analyzed private water well data on inorganic contaminants

in water from groundwater tests, then updated GIS database (MapInfo)
These records were made by groundwater engineers in Broome County,
and many dated as far back as the early 1970s
This information can be used in the event that no other baseline water
quality data exists in cases of water contamination from gas drilling
Finding GIS coordinates required extensive detective work, since some
places in the records only had a name and date as an identifier

Screen shot of MapInfo, the software

program I used to input chemical data.
Each dot in the map represents a data
point, with different colors representing
a different parameter