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Whoa! Geologists at the University of Cincinnati examined drinking water in Carroll, Stark and Harrison Counties, Ohio, and found no methane contamination.
The Deer Creek Foundation is no friend of fracking. It’s part of the fractivist echo chamber, in fact. They funded a study by the University of Cincinnati in hopes the research would yield results verifying methane contamination. They wanted tout those results to continue their defense against a shale revolution delivering economic revival, energy security and environmental improvement across Ohio, Pennsylvania and the rest of our great nation. They were disappointed. The results showed no methane contamination from recent oil and gas drilling in Ohio.
One of our readers passed along those results from the University of Cincinnati study, which are offered below, as reported on the University’s website:
A study of drinking water in Appalachian Ohio found no evidence of natural gas contamination from recent oil and gas drilling.
Geologists with the University of Cincinnati examined drinking water in Carroll, Stark and Harrison counties, a rural region in northeast Ohio where many residents rely on water from private underground wells.
The time-series study was the first of its kind in Ohio to examine methane in groundwater in relation to natural gas drilling. The results were published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
“Some people had elevated concentrations of methane in their groundwater, but the isotopic composition showed it wasn’t from natural gas” said Amy Townsend-Small, associate professor of geology in UC’s McMicken College of Arts and Sciences.
“What we found is in most cases it was probably from underground coal in the area or biological methane produced in groundwater.”
UC researchers collected 180 groundwater samples in total at homes in the three counties. Some of the sites were sampled multiple times. In particular, researchers looked for evidence of methane, the primary compound in natural gas. They also studied changes in the acidity or pH of the water, and changes to its conductivity.
They found no increase in methane concentration or composition in groundwater over the four years of the study, despite the presence of new shale gas wells drilled in the study area. Likewise, they did not find higher methane levels in closer approximation to shale drilling.
Researchers did find wide variability in methane concentrations in the drinking water, ranging from 0.2 micrograms per liter to 25.3 milligrams per liter, which is strong enough to catch fire in enclosed spaces. But researchers found no relationship between the methane observed in drinking water and the new gas wells.
“Clearly, additional monitoring is needed to determine whether methane concentrations and source signals in this region change as the number of oil and gas wells continues to increase,” the study concluded.
Researchers identified the chemical composition of the water using gas chromatography, isotope ratio mass spectrometry, and radiocarbon dating in a UC geology lab. Understanding the chemical composition helps identify the source of methane found in drinking water: from natural gas extraction, organic decomposition or even from the digestive systems of nearby cows.
Lead author and UC graduate Claire Botner said the study solicited participation by homeowners who were willing to let researchers test their wells.
The study area has seen increasing interest from natural gas companies in recent years. It’s located above a geological feature called the Utica Shale formation, which is known to harbor oil and natural gas. When UC launched its methane study in 2012, Ohio had issued 115 drilling permits for the region. By the study’s end in 2015, nearly 1,600 permits had been issued, primarily for Carroll County.
Hydraulic fracturing is a process by which pressurized water, sand and chemicals are pumped into natural-gas wells more than a mile deep to break apart shale to release pockets of oil and natural gas.
Researchers hypothesized that methane concentrations in the drinking-water wells they sampled would increase over time with the growth of natural gas drilling in the area. This is a correlation researchers observed in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale region.
This time-series map shows the Ohio counties where samples were collected for UC’s study. Red circles indicate active natural gas wells. Blue diamonds are sites where time series groundwater samples were taken. Light blue circles represent sites where a single sample of groundwater was collected. Groundwater sample locations are noted when samples were taken between the years noted in each map.
But that’s not what UC’s water tests revealed. The study concluded that methane observed in groundwater was “biogenic,” or naturally occurring and independent of natural gas drilling.
“The study researchers in Pennsylvania thought the contamination issue was a failure of the well casings in the fracking wells,” Townsend-Small said.
“Hopefully, that doesn’t happen often. And that apparently didn’t happen with the wells of homeowners we worked with for our study.”
Townsend-Small has spent much of her career researching groundwater and methane. She and other UC geologists are studying the influence of the Great Miami River on groundwater in southwest Ohio at UC’s C.V. Theis Groundwater Observatory. She also has studied atmospheric methane in relation to algae blooms in the Great Lakes and methane in arctic lakes in Alaska.
“Some people had elevated concentrations of methane in their groundwater, but the isotopic composition showed it wasn’t from natural gas. It was from a different source,” Townsend-Small said. “What we found is in most cases it was probably from underground coal in the area or biological methane produced in groundwater.”
Study co-authors included UC professor emeritus David Nash and UC assistant professor of geology Joshua Miller.
Botner said if researchers were to replicate the study, she might recommend expanding it to include other hydrocarbons such as propane or look for carbonate isotopes associated with natural gas drilling.
“It’s a controversial topic,” Botner said. “But that’s why science is so valuable. Maybe another study would confirm our findings or maybe they would find something else. Regardless, we would welcome more well testing.”
Carroll County Commissioner Robert Wirkner said the findings were good news for residents. Like many of his neighbors, he gets drinking water at his house from a private well on his property.
Wirkner said gas companies test the drinking water of nearby homes before and after they drill a well to observe any changes in water quality.
“My water has been tested multiple times,” he said. “So we’re happy to hear the findings.”
Yes, most of us are happy, indeed, except for the funders of the study, of course. One of our loyal readers notes the following:
The study is mainly based on information gathered between 2012 and 2014 and used by a student working on her Masters Degree, Elizabeth Claire Botner. She presented her thesis on July 19, 2015. The thesis committee are all later listed as co-authors on the published paper in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment on May 3, 2018.
So why haven’t we heard about it before this before now? The authors gave a presentation on February 4, 2016 to one of the groups that was in the report’s acknowledgements, the Carrol Concerned Citizens, who were probably not too pleased with the results. The CCC is an environmental group trying to protect water from the gas and coal industry in Carroll County and NE Ohio. Many of the Powerpoint slides were from Botner’s thesis. The presentation was taped for YouTube and the local paper was there and interviewed the presenter Dr. Amy Townsend-Small (Botner’s thesis advisor).
The funders are either moribund (Deer Creek Foundation’s URL returns a dead link) or offer no mention on their website (David and Sara Weston Foundation). The role of the University of Cincinnati Foundation is even less clear. Supposedly, they only arranged the funding through other foundations, but hell hath no fury like a donor scorned.
The post No Evidence of Methane Contamination from Recent Oil and Gas Drilling in Ohio appeared first on Natural Gas Now.
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