A new report published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology has identified 6,648 oil and gas spills reported in Pennsylvania, New Mexico, North Dakota, and Colorado from 2005 to 2014. Twenty-one states currently use fracking — a controversial drilling technique that forces liquid at a high pressure deep into the ground to force open fissures, making it easier to extract oil or natural gas. Fracking is controversial because of concerns over high environmental costs, damage to groundwater, and the toll on public health. Four countries — Germany, France, Bulgaria, and Scotland — have banned fracking altogether over these concerns.
The study found that the most spills occurred in North Dakota, where 4,453 of the incidents occurred. Spill frequency, researchers found, increases drastically at high-volume sites; there were 1,200 spills in Pennsylvania and hundreds in each of the other two states. This new data conflicts pretty drastically with numbers reported previously by the EPA, because of the way the calculations were done. The EPA data used only spills during the actual fracking extraction, said lead author Lauren Patterson, policy associate at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions. The new study made use of the entire life cycle of the oil or gas, and included events such as when it’s transported. “Understanding spills at all stages of well development is important because preparing for hydraulic fracturing requires the transport of more materials to and from well sites and storage of these materials on site,” she said.
A big emotional blow to advocates for fracking regulations was dealt in 2015, after President Obama signed a law to regulate it on public lands. It was designed, the White House said, to increase fracking safety. A federal judge struck down that regulation and said that other state and federal regulations already existed. Though the regulation would have applied only to public lands and would not have affected most fracking sites, the defeat was widely claimed as a victory by pro-fracking Republicans. Now President Trump has said he believes that fracking will “lead to American energy independence.”
