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Water Use Concerns Flood Frac Meetings and DOGGR Workshops Statewide

by Tomas DiFiore
Steam Injection Enhanced Oil Recovery Methods Might Use More Water Than Fracking
Admittedly, knowledge not to scale; as the numbers of wells in 'mature' oil fields that employ Steam Injection EOR efforts in the State of California and it's major oil and gas producing counties is not tracked and aggregated and thus is not available to Agencies or the public. 60 Million Gallons Turned To Steam Per Day - Compared to the water usage of a single family of four, in a 3 bedroom household, that's roughly equivalent to the yearly water usage of 500-1000 families in California.
Water Use Concerns Flood Frac Meetings and DOGGR Workshops Statewide

Steam Injection Enhanced Oil Recovery Methods Might Use More Water Than Fracking
Admittedly, knowledge not to scale; as the numbers of wells in 'mature' oil fields that employ Steam Injection EOR efforts in the State of California and it's major oil and gas producing counties is not tracked and aggregated and thus is not available to Agencies or the public.

60 Million Gallons per day Converted To Steam & Injected Into Wells;
by one small company, in one oil field to make heavy oil flow.

Compared to the water usage of a single family of four, in a 3 bedroom household, that's roughly equivalent to the yearly water usage of 500-1000 families in California. (60,000 gallons indoor usage, and another 115,000 gallons average for landscaping per year)

These are estimates in publications 2008-2013 (California DPW, State Agencies and Consumer Market Sector analysis) which of course vary, as if there could be a 'standard' for average use of water per household across the geography and demographics of our State!

*2013 California Green Building Code Water Use Modifications states:
“A new 3 bedroom single family home with 4 occupants is modeled to use, 174,000 gallons of water per year. The majority of this is for landscaping.” “Combining indoor and outdoor water savings would reduce this amount by another 38,000 gallons per year.”

Yet, this household water usage is miniscule compared to Enhanced Oil Recovery Steam Injection.

In one week, in one oil field, the yearly water usage of between 3,500 – 7,000 California families is pumped down into the ground, as steam. It comes back out with the oil, as produced water, to evaporate in unlined pits, and toxic ponds,

In the video Mixing Oil & Water, it is shown how just one oil company injects steam into the ground for 7 days in a row, then there is a soaking period followed by a production cycle. As production falls off, steam injection is again, applied – hence the term “Cyclic Steam Injection”.

Mixing Oil & Water: 4 min video
Kern County Farmer Fred Starrh stars in this interesting short video. When his almond trees died after he irrigated them with local ground water Fred Starrh sued nearby Aera Energy (Shell/ExxonMobil venture) for polluting the water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6I0wcCpEJg&feature=youtu.be

Published on Oct 4, 2012 This AMERICAN LAND
Interesting bits of information... one small California company...
Water from the California Aqueduct, turned to steam is injected into the earth.
“We pump 1.4 million barrels of water converted to steam into the ground per day.”
... steam, into the ground for 7 days in a row, then we let it soak for 7 days.” “Oil loosened by steam comes back out....”
1.4 million barrels is 60 million gallons. The quote is from the movie, by Fred Holmes, whose family-run Holmes Western Oil Co. operates several hundred wells west of Bakersfield.

A segment of the video is dedicated to the 1000 to 1200 holding ponds in the Southern San Joaquin Valley. Open Pits and 'holding ponds' continue to pollute the landscape as was discussed at the March 21st DOGGR 'workshop' in Sacramento. Quite a bit of discussion, and seems that liners, they don't actually work!

“Huff n Puff” and 'Full Field Steam Flood' programs can run for weeks at a time to stimulate well production, and then again when well production declines. Combinations of the technologies of “Steam Injection” in vertical wells, and fracked horizontal wells are currently producing in California's Monterey Shale and reservoirs such as the Oxnard Tar Sands. Steam Injection is used to heat the Earth to between 600 – 1000 degrees to make the oil flow.

Disposal wells are currently a limiting factor to production. Wastewater disposal wells are injection wells and are cited in numerous scientific publications as causing earthquakes related to fracking in several States.

Peak Oil Is Over
Even industry and investors know the sweet spots go first. Well depletion rates rapidly follow. Pipelines planned for export now will become pipelines for import as the Global Resource Acquisition and Production Technologies Corporations move to secure sustainable markets. So much wastewater is generated that the toxic aftermath has caused several States to ban it's dumping. States are banning the transport of wastewater on highways going from one State to another for disposal.

The next 'solution' is to barge it.
WASHINGTON Wed Apr 3, 2013
(Reuters) - The Obama administration is inching ahead with a plan that would allow wastewater from fracking to be shipped on barges, fueling a debate whether it is safer than other transportation modes or risks polluting drinking water.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/03/us-usa-fracking-wastewater-idUSBRE93216L20130403
The Coast Guard last month quietly sent to the White House's Office of Management and Budget a proposal to allow the barging of fracking wastewater. If the plan is pushed forward, it would become a proposed rule open for public comment and could be finalized sometime in the near future.

While the OMB will not comment on what is in the plan or give an estimate on when it could become a rule, the Coast Guard said late last year it hoped to complete a policy that would allow drillers to ship the waste via barge. Barges are a safer method of transport than trucks and trains, the current methods used to move the waste material that the industry calls brine.
Pursuant to 49 CFR 18.3 [Title 49 – Transportation, Subtitle A -- Office of the Secretary of Transportation], the term OMB means “the United States Office of Management and Budget.”

NO NAVIGABLE RIVER IS SAFE
Liquid Mud Barges

http://www.waterwaysjournal.net/news011413.html

Coast Guard Developing Frac-Wastewater Barging Policy
The Coast Guard’s lead chemical engineer told news media on December 16 that his agency would announce a policy on the barging of wastewater from fracking operations within a few weeks. Pat Keffler, described in news sources as the lead chemical engineer in the Coast Guard’s hazardous chemicals division, said the Coast Guard has been studying the issue for about a year at the request of oil and gas drillers, who know barging can offer great savings over truck or rail shipment of wastewater from fracking operations.

The announcement would normally have been routine, but a story by Emily DeMarco for the nonprofit foundation Public Source appeared on December 16 and was picked up by several news sources about barge transportation of fracking wastewater. Public Source, funded by the Heinz Endowment established by Pennsylvania’s prominent Heinz family, has made opposition to fracking one of its main causes.

Say NO to shipping fracking waste on barges
http://act.foodandwaterwatch.org/site/R?i=ju12mvTc0GecsFHqJRS2eA

Protect our rivers from fracking waste:
https://secure3.convio.net/fww/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=535

http://theintelligencer.net/page/content.detail/id/582958/New-Frack-Plant-Faces-Opposition.html?nav=515

Toxic Frac Waste - barge it to where? We're talking millions of gallons from the well, transferred to a truck, then transferred to a barge, then transferred to a dock/wastewater treatment plant, then transferred back onto barges, and transferred again to a truck to head to a disposal injection well.

New Frack Plant Faces Opposition As Councilwoman Aims to Halt Plan
March 24, 2013 West Virginia
A docking facility currently exists at the western end of the property, which Hoopes said the company plans to utilize to ship fracking waste, via barge, from Wheeling to disposal sites. How would the proposed Warwood plant work? companies fracking natural gas and oil wells throughout the region would transport their wastewater via truck to Warwood, where it would be offloaded into storage tanks.

GreenHunter would then use its "vibration separation system" to remove salt and other waste from the frack water, which allows the recycled water to be returned for use in the next fracking project. The salt and other waste left behind during the recycling process is then shipped to disposal wells (currently in Ohio).

The first news of this came in late December 2012, http://www.upstreamonline.com/live/article1300998.ece

“The US Coast Guard hopes to complete a policy in the next few weeks that would allow drillers to ship wastewater from shale gas production by barge over the nation's inland waterways, a government official said on Monday.”

Energy Independence
Not Extreme Resource Extraction/Production/Pollution Scenarios

Tomas DiFiore
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