Water Wednesday – Striking the Balance Between Fly Fishing and Fracking

-File Photo On Holding Pond –

READING THE TEXAS TEA LEAVES
– Take Care Liberal Fly Fishing Types … And Read on If YOU DARE –

Wow, it doesn’t take much in the way of misinformation and general lack of knowledge to get me worked up.

I take things a bit personally when people who don’t really fact check things they regurgitate, like this recent article – http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/08/12/2453731/fracking-drought-they-call-it-texas-tea-but-you-cant-drink-oil/ – a recent post on the website www.thinkprogress.org. Look everybody, we live in an era when athletes threaten to sue anyone who says anything about their steroid use, and they go out and lie right into the camera, and are found guilty off camera. We also live in an era when we overlook words in an article that have meaning, like “estimate frackers used 13.5 billion gallons water used in 2010, a number they project to more than double by 2020!” Okay, but how many gallons do other industries use? How many gallons do people personally use every year here in Texas?

READ MORE?

Yeah, and nobody I ever worked with, or even know calls it “Texas Tea.”

In an earlier article on the same site:
“Every fracking job requires 2 million to 4 million gallons of water, according to the Groundwater Protection Council. The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, has estimated that the 35,000 oil and gas wells used for fracking consume between 70 billion and 140 billion gallons of water each year. That’s about equal, EPA says, to the water use in 40 to 80 cities with populations of 50,000 people, or one to two cities with a population of 2.5 million each.”

So, what we are talking about here is, what? Let’s just use their fuzzy math, and say one city with a population of 3.5 million. That equals one percent increase in consumption of overall supply – due to fracking. For that one percent, we get what in return? Abundant natural gas to heat your water, your house and run factories with (TRULY) clean fuel. We move closer to energy independence, and away from dependence on countries that want to kill us. Is this worth the price? Eventually we get a move away from dirty coal and the mercury it drops in our water, making fish inedible!

Okay, I am cooling off a little now … this post’s been sitting, cooling, in the can for a couple of weeks.

I have to say things that make me think come from the oddest of places. Conway Bowman’s DVD, “Speed Muscle & Teeth,” features an interview with Luke Tripple, Director Shark Free Marinas, and he talks about the differences between a “conservationist,” and “animal rights activist.” I hadn’t given that much thought, but the differences are profound. And when it comes to fracking, I believe we can use the same level of intellect and dissection of the factions. I am not anti-fracking, and I am pro environment. In the big picture MACRO sense, natural gas will solve many more environmental problems than it causes. The problems caused by fracking are after the fact actually (and the area I am occasionally directly involved with).

When I release a water truck from the well site, it’s carrying about 80-thousand pounds of water. Typically, that water is taken to an injection well and injected back into the earth’s saltwater layer that is below us. Now, as much freshwater as we have below this layer, there is significantly more saltwater above – a lot more. I can’t see down there because it’s real dark, but I believe diluting this fracking water is like putting a drop in an ocean. It goes into water we can’t use and is contained. HOWEVER, for the “earth rights activists” this is where you have your greatest opportunity to make sense, and I don’t understand why you waste your time on the actual process that is so regulated and so controlled … and not on the injection process (which is tailor-made for the media and regulating). Perhaps the mainstream media can help you with this. And, as you can see from the photo at the beginning of this story, the wells I work on are on land that is far from any stream, water or any other higher value natural resource (recognized by any environmentalist). In places

FEEL FREE TO THINK, and if you have a better idea, feel free to let everyone hear it. I can tell you first hand; fracking isn’t pretty. It’s ugly mostly, like a lot of the industry that keeps us going every day. If I have a better idea than fracking, I will be sure and let you know all about it, and then I will retire and buy my own island with a flats boat for each day of the week.

Tags: clean coal, conservation, environmental, fracking, natural gas, water wednesday

Category: Causes, Culture on the Skids, Science and Environmental