Drilling for natural gas on city-owned land: the water issue no one is raising

According to this story in the Dallas Morning News, Dallas city council members Angela Hunt and Mitchell Rasansky "lashed out" at those supporting a plan to lease city land for natural gas and oil exploration. They are worried that these working pumps will disrupt the peace and quiet of Dallas neighborhoods.

Actually, that should be the least of their concerns.

According to the News' story, two companies XTO Energy and Trinity East Energy, have agreed to pay the city $34 million for the rights to drill for natural gas on city owned land. I doubt that much of this land is located in "the peace and quiet of Dallas neighborhoods." In fact, from what I hear, a lot of it is located at Love Field so the noise of the pumps will probably be drowned out by the incessant roar of jet engines anyway.

But here's the question I would like Ms. Hunt or Mr. Rasansky to ask. Will XTO Energy and Trinity East Energy be permitted to pump for natural gas between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. between April 1 and October 31? I ask this question because Dallas residents are forbidden to water their lawns during this time but no one knows exactly how much Dallas water these two companies will need to use to extract this natural gas. I can tell you one thing: It will be a lot.

Drilling for this gas is not like sticking a straw into the earth and sucking the gas out. It is locked into rock--Barnet Shale formations to be exact--and it's difficult to extract. For this reason, this type of gas is referred to as "unconventional." Part of the extraction process involves injecting a lot of water into the well to break up the rock formations. Once more, this water is then brought back to the surface along with the brackish water that surrounds all hydrocarbon formations. According to some estimates, for every barrel of hydrocarbons extracted from a well, you get 10 barrels of brackish or saline water. In a nutshell, you are injecting thousands of gallons of fresh water into the well and extracting even more thousands of gallons of contaminated water out. Has anyone explained how this water will be disposed of?

It wasn't that long ago that this area was in the middle of a serious drought and there are those forecasting even worse disasters are in store for us because we don't have enough water to meet the demands of our residents. Yet, for some reason, we seem to be giving a couple of drilling companies the right to use our water--water that is often restricted for use by our citizens.

Why are we doing this? Is it because the City is so desperate for additional revenue it is willing to sacrifice future water supplies? Those are the questions I would like to see raised around the City Council's horseshoe.