Fractious issue: Drillers ready and waiting
Long before man appeared on the planet, even before the North American continent had formed, a prehistoric ocean was dropping organic sediments to its shallow bottom.
Under enormous pressure from later sedimentary deposits, this material rose in temperature, decayed and formed gas and oil shale deposits. These came to underlie the southeast part of Illinois. Coal formation came much later and coal seams lie much closer to the surface.
Shale is deep.
Continental plates shifted, the oceans dried up and the land rose. North America was born.
Eons later, the Ice Age glaciers stopped their southward march near where Salem, Illinois would be built. This spared Southern Illinois the topographical scalping that the glaciers produced in Northern and Central Illinois. The name "Prairie State" would never seem as apt a description of Southern Illinois as it is of the flatter regions north of it.
Southern Illinois kept its hills and valleys and has become a place of scenic beauty uncommon in the state. It has enough water. It is green. It has long been agricultural. Coal played a major role in its development but that industry has fallen off. Tourism is a budding prospect.
That gas and oil is still there, locked in place by shale deposits, deep, deep underground.
The region is economically depressed.
Those shale deposits could change the economics of the area.
A new drilling method, involving horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, makes the gas and oil reserves a tempting play for industry.
But until exploration begins, until some horizontal wells are drilled, until the new drilling process is tried, no one knows whether the gas can be economically produced in southeastern Illinois.
The New Albany Shale underlies Southern Illinois, southern Indiana and western Kentucky.
It may be a good source of producing wells for both oil and gas.
Horizontal hydraulic fracking is a process that starts with a vertical well, but goes deeper to reach the layers of shale. Then the drill bit is gradually turned horizontal and the well hole is extended as far as 2 miles horizontally. Water, sand, salt and chemicals are pumped into the shale under pressures that would crumble the hull of a nuclear submarine. This cracks the shale rock and leaves fissures. The pumped in sand props open these fissures when the water pressure is relieved. The well is then ready to produce. The oil and gas can flow through these fissures. Much of the pumped in water and the chemicals return to the surface as a salty, toxic problem. Injecting it deep into already existing saline aquifers may be the best and safest method to dispose of it, said Kevin Reimer, a consulting geologist from Harrisburg.
"There are salt water aquifers. Where do you think Saline County got its name?" asked Reimer.
Some call fracking a short-term boom that could ruin the environment. Oil and gas industry backers claim it can be done safely and will produce fuels for decades if properly regulated.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency has declared that it is a safe process. But a new EPA report is due soon.
Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act
Illinois State Rep. John E. Bradley authored a piece of state legislation that when signed by Gov. Quinn was called the toughest fracking regulation in the countrey.Critics of Bradley's Illinois Hydraulic Fracturing Regulatory Act (HB 2615) say it should be stricter and is a sweetheart deal for the gas industry. Bradley received $47,000 in campaign contributions from the gas and oil industry in 2012 according to Votesmart.org.
"That's nonsense," said Bradley of the charge of being soft on the drillers. "We have won significant concessions (from the drillers) and the entire coalition agreed to them."
The coalition he referred to is the group of representatives who helped him draft the bill. The coalition has representation from environmental groups like the Sierra Club and representatives of the gas and oil industry.
Bradley said the most likely sites for extensive fracking are White County, Saline County and Gallatin County. Other southeastern counties will produce wells but the most extensive drilling will occur in these three.
Bradley's bill passed the house and senate and was signed by Governor Quinn on June 17.
Critics of the oil and gas industry claim that people from other states come in and do the higher paying work on the rigs, leaving only truck driving jobs for the local residents.
The solution to this problem was offering significant tax incentives to the industry if they hire local workers, said Bradley.
"Fifty percent of the rig workers will be local due to this resolution," he said.
It was entered into the bill on May 8.
Southeastern Illinois College and Rend Lake College are partnering in offering classes for oil and gas field workers. Salaries are estimated to be $50,000 to $60,000 for entry-level jobs for trained workers.
Environmental concerns
Oil drilling has been done vertically in Illinois since the 1940s. Vertical fracking wells have existed almost as long. But horizontal wells are new and have been around only since the late-90s. The gas industry has developed shale gas fields in Texas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, North Dakota and South Dakota. The states of North and South Dakota are now solvent.
Environmentalists are skeptical that fracking can be good for Southeastern Illinois.
SAFE (Southern Illinoisans Against Fracking our Environment) is a group based in Southern Illinois. They were invited to be part of the first teleconference that Bradley organized between the gas industry and the environmentalists. They were not asked to be part of the smaller group that was invited to help draft the legislation. Those chosen worked with Bradley in Springfield on the actual bill.
"SAFE chose to drop out of our Springfield coalition once we got down to the end," said Bradley.
Richard Fedder, a SAFE member and speaker, explains it this way: "We weren't invited and we took that to mean that what we wanted to discuss would not even be on the table."
Fedder said SAFE is concerned about:
Water use
Waste water and how it is disposed of
Earthquakes being caused by fracking
Air pollution from fracking
Health concerns due to fracking
Local control issues (SAFE believes counties and municipalities should be able to say no to fracking within their boundaries. (Currently only the state has that power.)
Sam Stearns, a member of Friends of Bell Smith Springs in Pope County, said, "We would be fools not to learn from what has happened in other states."
He was referring to the pollution and health problems said to be associated with fracking in Pennsylvania. He fears chemical spills, air pollution, water poisoning and road damage from increased truck traffic.
"There will be an increased need for law enforcement. There will be lots of young men earning the first big money of their lives. They will have no place to go and nothing to do," he said.
"There will be a boom and then there will be bust. A few will profit from the boom and the rest of us will have to live with what they leave behind. Southern Illinois will not be a place you would want to retire in. Any reclamation effort after fracking is like putting makeup on a corpse."
The environmental groups were hoping to get a two-year moratorium on fracking from the Illinois legislature. That legislation lost in a horse race with the Bradley bill, Bradley won.
Les Winkeler, a Harrisburg resident who cautions against haste, said, "I don't understand the need to hurry. Sixty-five percent of our drinking water comes from groundwater sources. An accident could greatly effect us. The current technology has only been around since 1996. They haven't been doing horizontal fracking that long. If it is so safe, why did they need the Cheney Loophole?" he said.
The Cheney Loophole is a provision environmental groups say exempts fracking from significant EPA regulation. They say it was introduced by the Bush/Cheney administration.
At an informational meeting held in Goreville on May 8 the SAFE representatives were out in force while the gas industry sent only two representatives. Johnson County will get some fracking activity, but nothing like Saline, Gallatin and White Counties, according to Bradley.
Vito Mastrangelo, a retired attorney and SAFE activist said at the May 8 meeting, "We have to leave fossil fuels in the ground. There are climate concerns here," he said.
The anti-frack arguments seemed to carry the day for the 200 participants in the informational meeting.
Kevin Reimer, a geologist from Harrisburg, spoke from the industry's side of the room.
"The EPA has found fracking to be safe. They say there is no correlation between fracking and groundwater pollution. The size of the new operations will be the only difference from the vertical fracking that has been going on for 50 years."
Drilling companies
Franklin Well Services in Carmi is a company that stands to gain work if fracking companies decide to pursue southeastern Illinois plays.
Jake Campbell of Franklin Well Services in Carmi, said, "We haven't drilled for high-volume fracking yet. But those operations have to be responsible and handle things with care. Illinois drillers were on hold pending legislation. About Pennsylvania: Nobody has proved any pollution there to my knowledge. That gas they found in people's wells has been occurring naturally for hundreds of years."
Bob Wilson of L. F. Wilson Drilling Co. in White County said, "They have been fracking around here since the 50s. It is nothing new."
White County oil well taxes for 2012 brought in $1,182,444 according to the White County Clerk's Office.
"There have been oil wells in this state since the early 1900s. The only difference is that now they can do it horizontally," said Wilson.
Trinity Fry describes himself as a "tool pusher," while his boss, Williams, calls him a "rig superintendent."
Fry said, "The fracking has nothing to do with contamination. Proper well design is the issue. The vertical shaft has to be properly cemented. If it is not designed right with the right cement, it's a problem."
That vertical shaft is what passes through the much shallower ground water supply. When it rises from great depths and passes through the aquifer it has to be impermeable. Encasing the steel tube with special cement assures that the shaft will not leak, the drillers say. Cutting corners during that process could cause the environment to suffer down the road when the wells are plugged and abandoned.
Regulation is intended to guarantee that all wells will be safe and the ground water will not be polluted.
Illinois currently has a very limited number of well inspectors said driller Wilson.
Danny Gibbs, Saline County Board member, said, "We need to look at the positive side. What the county needs to do is be sure the state doesn't get all the severance tax money. We need to retain a significant percentage for the county. The state took it from us with coal. We got absolutely zilch. We should not let that happen again with gas and oil. Then we can have money for schools and other pressing needs."
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