According to the UTGCD, Barnett Shale drilling used more than 1,146,598,272.73 gallons of water in the 4 county UTGCD district from Trinity Aquifer in 2009.
That’s just from the Trinity in those 4 counties and does not include surface water. According to documents received in a Public Information Request, many sources do not have meters.
Summer is coming.
The population is growing.
Drillers need to follow best practices in Drill-Right Texas and recycle water at the wellsite.
P.S. That water is permanently removed from our hydrologic cycle. FOREVER.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
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Oddly enough, that corresponds to how much water I have to put on my lawn to get it to grow in Texas in August. Kidding aside, that's a lot of frackin' water.
Oh and for all of you who have been fined by municipalities for too much water use, tell them to fine the gas industry first. At least watering the lawn doesn't take it out of the cycle in perpetuity.
Industry, drilling, and the military have polluted so many aquifers that we are in trouble on that score anyway. Most of us have to use "city water" from reservoirs and Dallas is working on getting another reservoir and pipeline to move water to the city-as things stand now. Depleting what little clean water we have now in aquifers-esp in large quantities-should not be allowed.
Seems we will ruin or lose most of our water through one means or another…Does anyone in authority ever think about the entire hydrolic system?
And don't forget to turn the water off while brushing your teeth. We
wouldn't want to cause a drought.
I'm sure people who pay for water in the Barnett (& other) Shale will be more than glad to subsidize the gas fracking business. 😉
Maybe gas producer should be forced to desalinate seawater & use that if they don't want to recycle their water.
When we lived in a sub-division in Denton, we used an average of 3000 gallons per month. At this rate of consumption, it would take us about 125 years to use as much water as the the Spiller Drillers have in one MONTH.
In other words, you can only water your lawn on Tues and Thurs, but Big Oil…whatever you need, baby, whatever you need.
No, it's still part of the cycle. It is just added with about 1000 toxic chemicals that we will be drinking later.
It is no longer a part of the active hydrologic cycle because they inject it and the 1000 chemicals into an injection well.
Good point, Sharon. But don't despair friends b/c these fracking injection wells are closely linked to earthquakes nearby their locations. So the quake could very likely break these injection wells and return the water to us. Hallelujah. Isn't great? We'll have plenty of water eventually.
Signs and billboards all over Tarrant County chastising us that "our lawn is not a lake". We are actually suing the State of Oklahoma because they won't give us their water to waste as well. And then they sell the water to drillers, who contaminate it and then re-inject it into the earth thereby causing earthquakes which in turn can damage drill pipe and cause more leakages. There are SO MANY THINGS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE!!!! But still our elected officials and their staffs stand like hogs at a trough reciting the mantra of the ignorant – "Drill, baby, drill".