A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water

  • Thread starter Thread starter latin_rite
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
L

latin_rite

Guest
A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water. Fracking boom sucks away precious water from beneath the ground, leaving cattle dead, farms bone-dry and people thirsty
Beverly McGuire saw the warning signs before the town well went dry: sand in the toilet bowl, the sputter of air in the tap, a pump working overtime to no effect. But it still did not prepare her for the night last month when she turned on the tap and discovered the tiny town where she had made her home for 35 years was out of water
Click to expand...
theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
 
Sorry George, these types of stories abound in our state as well. People in areas where fracking has become widespread are having issues with their wells and there was widespread “minor” earthquakes that have settled since those areas have stopped any new fracking.
 
Wells go dry all the time. Parts of Texas have been in a major multi-year drought since 2011. That is going to have long term repercussions to water supplies.
 
lcburgundy said:
Wells go dry all the time. Parts of Texas have been in a major multi-year drought since 2011. That is going to have long term repercussions to water supplies.
Click to expand...
Exactly…plus you have lawyers roaming oil/gas country telling people they will get people big bucks. I’m in the heart of the Marcellus boom, and water problems are no more prevalent with deep wells than they were with shallow…actually fewer because the fracturing occurs so far below the water table.
 
Amazing.
Can’t drink oil lads. Ya can’t drink it.
George surely you troll?
 
Three years of drought, decades of overuse and now the oil industry’s outsize demands on water for fracking are running down reservoirs and underground aquifers. And climate change is making things worse.
Click to expand...
Three years of draught, decades of overuse but fracking is the problem? 🤷
 
lcburgundy said:
Wells go dry all the time. Parts of Texas have been in a major multi-year drought since 2011. That is going to have long term repercussions to water supplies.
Click to expand...
That is certainly true, fracing or no fracing. Texas is facing a very severe problem in coming years as we try to find enough water for the booming population in the face of the on-going drought.

That being said, the areas of Texas that are booming because of the advances in fracing technology ARE going to be in worse shape water-wise because of the need for large quantities of water for the process. Those areas tend to be areas that have looming water shortages before you factor in the water used for fracing.

The solution is not to stop fracing. The solution is to figure out a new source of fresh water. I think that the focus on “green” energy is misdirected. I think that those technologies should be applied to desalination efforts so that briny groundwater and/or sea water can be converted into fresh water.

Peace

Tim
 
latin_rite said:
A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water. Fracking boom sucks away precious water from beneath the ground, leaving cattle dead, farms bone-dry and people thirsty

theguardian.com/environment/2013/aug/11/texas-tragedy-ample-oil-no-water
Click to expand...
I think that we should just get rid of the people in the area as they seem to be the real problem.:rolleyes:

From the article: “But Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, argues fracking is not the only reason Texas is going dry – and nor is the drought. The latest shocks to the water system come after decades of overuse by ranchers, cotton farmers, and fast-growing thirsty cities”.

Peace

Tim
 
Fracking IS a water intensive process. It simply uses a lot of water. If you start doing it in a community that already has marginal groundwater supply, I’m not surprised it could lead to depletion. But it’s not because of the mysterious and evil forces associated with fracking. A new chicken processing plant in town would have done the same thing! If you pump groundwater out of wells faster than it recharges, you eventually run out.

Sometimes government regulation IS needed. Doesn’t Texas have a State Water Survey or somebody watching over the number of wells and rate of extraction to see these sorts of things coming?
 
manualman said:
Fracking IS a water intensive process. It simply uses a lot of water. If you start doing it in a community that already has marginal groundwater supply, I’m not surprised it could lead to depletion. But it’s not because of the mysterious and evil forces associated with fracking. A new chicken processing plant in town would have done the same thing! If you pump groundwater out of wells faster than it recharges, you eventually run out.

Sometimes government regulation IS needed. Doesn’t Texas have a State Water Survey or somebody watching over the number of wells and rate of extraction to see these sorts of things coming?
Click to expand...
Usually the fracking company sets up their own water supply because they know the local supply won’t be suffice. They don’t want to invest millions only to have a water use restriction shut them down.

I wonder what they will complain about when waterless fracking becomes the industry standard?

governing.com/news/state/tt-waterless-fracking-catching-on-in-texas.html
 
manualman said:
Sometimes government regulation IS needed. Doesn’t Texas have a State Water Survey or somebody watching over the number of wells and rate of extraction to see these sorts of things coming?
Click to expand...
In most cases, we own all groundwater beneath our feet here in Texas. Case in point is the man in the article who installed a couple of frac tanks and sells water to fracing companies. He has as much right to pump groundwater from beneath his property as do the cotton farmers in the area.

Texas does have a state water plan that forecasts water needs and it paints a grim picture of the future without some very significant spending to develop new sources.

I don’t think we can get there without figuring a way to economically desalinate either briny groundwater (which is plentiful throughout most of the state) and seawater, which is, of course, basically limitless but only along the coast. The desalinated seawater would have to be piped to other areas of the state, but we are good at building pipelines here in Texas, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
I don’t think we can get there without figuring a way to economically desalinate either briny groundwater (which is plentiful throughout most of the state) and seawater, which is, of course, basically limitless but only along the coast. The desalinated seawater would have to be piped to other areas of the state, but we are good at building pipelines here in Texas, so that shouldn’t be a problem.

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
Why bother? The White River in Mo and Ar floods almost every year. There are other rivers like that. The Mississippi also often carries excess water. Why not just pipe it down to Tx?

Of course, that would be a mighty big pipeline to do much good, but Dallas isn’t all that far away, and surely such pipelines could at least provide water to Dallas/Ft Worth.🤷
 
Ridgerunner said:
Why bother? The White River in Mo and Ar floods almost every year. There are other rivers like that. The Mississippi also often carries excess water. Why not just pipe it down to Tx?

Of course, that would be a mighty big pipeline to do much good, but Dallas isn’t all that far away, and surely such pipelines could at least provide water to Dallas/Ft Worth.🤷
Click to expand...
Obama would probably fight that pipeline too. He would require Warren Buffet’s trains to haul the water to Dallas.
 
Ridgerunner said:
Why bother? The White River in Mo and Ar floods almost every year. There are other rivers like that. The Mississippi also often carries excess water. Why not just pipe it down to Tx?
Click to expand...
Price and permission from the states that own the rights to that water are the two big reasons I can think of off the top of my head, with price being the biggest obstacle. Most of the areas that need help are not only a long way away, but there is a significant elevation difference. For example, Amarillo is about 3,700 ft above sea level. The Mississippi River in Memphis, TN is at about 200-250 ft above sea level. You would have to move the water about 650 miles horizontally and about 3,500 ft vertically. The cost would be enormous just to get the water from point a to point b and that doesn’t even factor in the cost to build a massive pipeline. And that is only one area that needs help.

The area mentioned in the op is a little farther away (~700 miles) and a little lower in elevation (~2,500 ft above sea level).

Peace

Tim
 
SamH said:
Obama would probably fight that pipeline too. He would require Warren Buffet’s trains to haul the water to Dallas.
Click to expand...
Actually, it was another billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, that positioned himself to benefit from water situation. He bought rights to groundwater in the far northern part of the Texas Panhandle where there are few people but lots of groundwater. He planned to build a pipeline and sell the water to Dallas, but the cost was so high that he couldn’t make the sale, so he sold the rights to a local water authority.

He estimated the cost to build a pipeline from the northern Panhandle to the Dallas area to be about $3 billion. That is one pipeline less than 400 miles long, all downhill.

Peace

Tim
 
Orogeny said:
Actually, it was another billionaire, T. Boone Pickens, that positioned himself to benefit from water situation. He bought rights to groundwater in the far northern part of the Texas Panhandle where there are few people but lots of groundwater. He planned to build a pipeline and sell the water to Dallas, but the cost was so high that he couldn’t make the sale, so he sold the rights to a local water authority.

He estimated the cost to build a pipeline from the northern Panhandle to the Dallas area to be about $3 billion. That is one pipeline less than 400 miles long, all downhill.

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
I wasn’t aware he had sold it.
 
Orogeny said:
Price and permission from the states that own the rights to that water are the two big reasons I can think of off the top of my head, with price being the biggest obstacle. Most of the areas that need help are not only a long way away, but there is a significant elevation difference. For example, Amarillo is about 3,700 ft above sea level. The Mississippi River in Memphis, TN is at about 200-250 ft above sea level. You would have to move the water about 650 miles horizontally and about 3,500 ft vertically. The cost would be enormous just to get the water from point a to point b and that doesn’t even factor in the cost to build a massive pipeline. And that is only one area that needs help.

The area mentioned in the op is a little farther away (~700 miles) and a little lower in elevation (~2,500 ft above sea level).

Peace

Tim
Click to expand...
I’m sorry. I didn’t mention Amarillo. Nor did I mention Memphis. I mentioned the Ozarks and Dallas. Dallas is about 425 miles away by road from Branson, Missouri, where there’s a lot of water. As the crow flies, it would be less. Branson is about 300’ higher in elevation than Dallas. The Springfield Plain, where much of the water comes from is higher still; about 800 feet higher than Dallas/Fort Worth.

Amarillo will need to find its own water. I can’t help them.🙂 Might not be anything anybody can do to improve the water situation in the Llano Estocada. The rainfall at Dallas isn’t all that bad, but having said that, I’ll bet there is a water table “dimple” under and around Dallas that would cause you to catch your breath, it would be so deep.

But I will say this. If there was some way to carry off flood waters in the White River basin or in the headwaters of Grand Lake in Oklahoma, I’ll bet there would be no argument from the state authorities about it.

Well, then, KC is farther away from Dallas than the Springfield Plain, but since St. Louis is not much higher than Dallas, forget the Mississippi. Missouri River water could be sent to Dallas from around KC, which is about 600 feet higher than Dallas. The route wouldn’t be so far away from Springfield or Branson that a “feeder” line couldn’t be extended to it.

But you really don’t need enormous differences in elevation for water to flow. I likes to go downhill. Most of the Roman aqueducts sloped very gradually, almost imperceptibly.

Truth be known, I’ll bet it would be no more difficult to do that than it is to send most of the Colorado River to L.A., Las Vegas and all the irrigated farms in the California deserts.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top