Multiple news outlets are reporting that the Department of Energy released a statement indicating positive results from a year-long fracking study being conducted by the National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) at a well site in Washington County, Pennsylvania.
Researchers conducted seismic monitoring of eight horizontal Marcellus shale wells. In one of those wells the researchers used unique markers to monitor the flow of chemicals from a frack job. The researchers were looking to see if the chemicals contaminated shallow groundwater or traveled to older gas wells 3000 feet above the Marcellus. After one year, the researchers found that the frack fluid stayed thousands of feet below shallower horizons that supply drinking water to many Pennsylvanians. The chemicals also were not detected in the older gas wells being monitored. The only surprising result from the study was that the chemicals in one fracture traveled 1800 feet horizontally from the well, when most fractures traveled only a few hundred feet.
This is plainly good news for those that support shale gas development so long as it can be done in an environmentally protective manner - but caution on reading too much into the preliminary results is just as plainly warranted. The study monitored a single well in a specific geologic setting, and researchers are in the early stages of collecting, analyzing and validating the data. NETL's own statement emphasizes that the "results are far too preliminary to make any firm claims."
More studies such as this are warranted in other geologic settings across Pennsylvania, and the results from those studies should be used to inform the public debate and policy decisions around shale gas development.
