Fracking in N.C. Could Impact Water Supply for 2.4 Million People

As the N.C. House of Representatives prepares to vote on whether to fast track fracking and offshore drilling in North Carolina, a map released today by the Southern Environmental Law Center shows that hydraulic fracturing of potential shale gas deposits in the state could directly impact the water supply for 1.1 million people, and an additional 1.3 million people downstream.

“The concerns and unanswered questions about fracking should lead to careful study first instead of rushing headlong as the result may have grave consequences for North Carolina water quality and drinking water,” said Geoff Gisler, an attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.

Next week, the N.C. House may vote whether to override Governor Perdue’s veto of bill S. 709 which would expedite offshore drilling and a gas extraction method known as fracking in North Carolina. Fracking injects pressurized water, a mixture of chemicals, and sand into rock formations to create cracks that release gas and can require 5 million gallons of water for a single well. Concerns over water supplies for drinking water and food production already exist with much of North Carolina in drought.

Horizontal drilling for fracking and injecting chemicals into groundwater are currently prohibited by North Carolina law. The General Assembly already enacted legislation this session to study fracking without S.709’s presumptive conclusion that it is in the best interest of the state to change existing law to allow it.

Potential gas formations in the Triassic Basins are underneath or upstream from public drinking water supplies for 2.4 million people in North Carolina, stretching from the densely populated areas of the Triangle through the Sandhills to the South Carolina state line. Other communities downstream withdraw drinking water from the Lumber, Cape Fear, Neuse, and Tar Rivers. A smaller area of the shale occurs along the Dan River in Stokes, Rockingham, Yadkin and Davie Counties.

In other states where fracking has occurred, residents have reported spills and fumes, health problems, contaminated tap water, sick and dying animals, earthquakes, and other problems.

The chemicals injected into the ground during fracking may include toxic and dangerous chemicals. A recent Congressional report listed 750 chemicals and compounds used in fracking by 14 oil and gas service companies from 2005 to 2009. Of those chemicals, 29 chemicals—including benzene and lead—are either known or potentially cancer-causing, or pose other serious risks to human health.

But Congress exempted fracking from federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005 after heavy lobbying by oil and gas companies, meaning that companies are not required to disclose their chemical mixtures under federal law. Companies can and do refuse to disclose the chemical mix that they inject into the ground.

Those chemicals can stray from the target drilling site. In a 2011 peer-reviewed, scientific study, Duke University scientists found, on average, methane concentrations 17 times above normal in samples taken from water wells near gas drilling sites that involve fracking, a level considered hazardous by experts.

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Note to Editors:
• The map by the Southern Environmental Law Center is available at http://www.southernenvironment.org//uploads/fck/Hydrofraking_Potential_NC_Map_web.jpg  A high resolution print copy is available for use by accredited press to accompany stories based on this release with appropriate credit by contacting SELC.
• The Congressional report is available at http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/index.php?q=news/committee-democrats-release-new-report-detailing-hydraulic-fracturing-products  
• The peer-reviewed study by Duke University is available at http://www.propublica.org/documents/item/methane-contamination-of-drinking-water-accompanying-gas-well-drilling  


The Southern Environmental Law Center is a regional nonprofit using the power of the law to protect the health and environment of the Southeast (Virginia, Tennessee, North and South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama). Founded in 1986, SELC's team of more than 40 legal and policy experts represent more than 100 partner groups on issues of climate change and energy, air and water quality, forests, the coast and wetlands, transportation, and land use.
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