EPA Releases Guidelines on the Use of Diesel Fuel in Fracking Fluid

Environment California

Sacramento, CA. – Today, as we learn more every day about the chemicals used in fracking that threaten our environment and health, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency released a long-awaited guidance for regulating the use of diesel fuel in fracking fluid under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Investigations show that diesel fuel, known to be hazardous to human health, has been used in fracking operations in California.

“After the chemical spill disaster in West Virginia that left 300,000 West Virginians unable to drink their tap water the threats to our drinking water couldn’t be clearer. We know that diesel fuel is a known carcinogen, but companies have reported using diesel fuel in fracking fluid in California, said Environment California Legislative Director Dan Jacobson. “The EPA has made a small step toward curbing one of many threats from fracking. And while EPA lacks the authority to stop fracking entirely, the agency can and should bar the use of diesel fuel in fracking fluid, once and for all.”

Fracking, a form of oil and gas drilling, uses toxic chemicals, sometimes including diesel fuel, mixed with millions of gallons of fresh water, to extract gas and oil reserves deep below the earth’s surface. California, in the middle of one of the worst droughts in history can’t afford to continue to frack. Diesel fuel is incredibly toxic. It contains benzene, a known carcinogen, as well as toluene, ethyl benzene, and xylenes, which can damage our liver, kidneys and central nervous system. Benzene alone is so toxic that the concentration in drinking water “below which there is no known or expected risk to health” is zero.[i]

In 2011, the Obama administration convened a panel to make recommendations on shale gas development to the U.S. Department of Energy Science Advisory Board. The panel’s findings concluded “there is no technical or economic reason to use diesel in shale gas production.” As far back as 2004, the U.S. EPA concluded that the “use of diesel fuel in fracturing fluids poses the greatest threat to underground sources of drinking water.”[ii] 

A 2011 inquiry by Reps. Henry Waxman (Cali.) and Ed Markey (Mass.) revealed that the oil and gas industry used at least 32 million gallons of fracking fluid containing diesel fuel in 19 states from 2005 to 2009, including 26,000 in California.[iii] (See charts below.) Continued use of diesel in fracking fluid was confirmed again in August 2012 in an estimated 408 wells nationwide.[iv]

“The case for banning diesel in fracking fluid is clear. And given the other threats to our drinking water, air, health, and communities, we need to stop fracking altogether,” concluded Jacobson

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Environment California is a statewide environmental group working for clean air, clean water and protecting our beautiful places.

For more information please visit: www.environmentcalifornia.org

Table 1. Injection of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids Containing Diesel Fuel: By Company

(2005-2009)

Volume

Company

(gallons)

Basic Energy Services

204,013

B.l Services

11,555,538

Complete

4,625

Frac Tech

159,371

Halliburton

7,207,216

Key Energy Services

1,641,213

RPC

4,314,110

Sanjel

3,641,270

Schlumberger

443,689

Superior

833,431

Trican

92,537

Weatherford

2,105,062

Total

32,202,075

Table 2. Injection of Hydraulic Fracturing Fluids Containing Diesel Fuel: By State

(2005-2009)

Volume

Volume

State

(gallons)

State

(gallons)

AK

39,375

MS

221,044

AL

2,464

MT

662,946

AR

414,492

NO

3,138,950

CA

26,466

NM

605,480

CO

1,331,543

OK

3,337,325

FL

377

PA

589

KS

50,304

TX

16,031,927

KY

212

UT

404,572

LA

2,971 ,255

WY

2,954,747

MI

8,007

Total

32,202,075

Source:  Attachment to Waxman, H., Markey, E. and DeGette, D., Letter to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson re: investigation on diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing (January 31, 2011)

[i] United States Environmental Protection Agency, Drinking Water Contaminants, found at www.epa.gov/safewater/contaminants/index.html#1 September 9, 2012.  EPA’s enforceable limit for benzene in drinking water is 5 parts per billion, but the agency sets “[t]he level of [benzene] in drinking water below which there is no known or expected risk to health,” at “zero.”

[ii] U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Evaluation of Impacts 10 Underground Sources

of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coal bed Methane Reservoirs (June 2004) (EPA 816-R-04-003) at 4-11.

[iii] Waxman, H., Markey, E. and DeGette, D., Letter to U.S. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson re: investigation on diesel fuel in hydraulic fracturing (January 31, 2011).

[iv] See Mike Soraghan, “Hydraulic Fracturing:  Diesel still used to ‘frack’ wells, FracFocus data shows,” Energy Wire (August 17, 2012) http://www.eenews.net/public/energywire/2012/08/17/1  Because data submission to FracFocus is voluntary in many states, there are likely other wells using diesel that were not included in this total.