This is not a sexy story. Nobody is getting blown up, although there are likely some who are dying the slow death of cancer caused by drinking polluted water. However, if this continues, it will soon be a very sexy story and we need someone sexy to help solve it. We can live without Iraq's oil but we can't live without water. Very soon water will not only be the sexy story, it will be the only story.
Take a look at this:
This is our water cycle and what you may notice is that we don't get new water. Our same old water continually recycles itself. Another thing you might notice is there is no God sending us more water label in that water cycle. Many people where I live still believe that they can pray hard enough and God will send us more water.
Won't happen!
Maybe, if we pray long enough and fervent enough and hard enough, God might send us some water, but that water would come from the water we already have that is a part of our water cycle and it would be at the expense of some other thirsty folks. And, when those people get thirsty enough and their prayers become long, fervent and hard enough, then God might send them water. Would that water God sent to them be our water? Would God be stealing our water to send to other thirsty people? Can you see how water wars get started? I witnessed the beginning of a potential water war Wednesday night and it was sickening.
The truth is that our planet came with all the water we needed as long as we took care of that water by being good stewards. But, we haven't and we aren't.
Our insatiable consumption of oil and gas and Big Oil's insatiable greed has spawned the Barnett Shale's insatiable thirst for fresh water. Now we can say goodbye to another 9 billion gallons of water per year.
From the Star Telegram we learn:
North Texas Living Water Resources, has acquired rights to nearly 9 billion gallons of water per year from the Brazos River and they plan to sell it to drilling companies for use in the Barnett Shale
According to the article, that's just about enough water to supply the oil and gas drilling companies in Grandbury, where North Texas Living Water Resources is based, for one year. They use the water to fracture (frac) the limestone shale and release the gas.
To that 9 billion gallons of water add the figures from my research:
Only I was corrected by Big Oil who said that Barnett Shale wells are only fractured once, which by now we all know is a lie because I caught them in it. And if that's not enough, at the Barnett Shale Oil and Gas Symposium in Fort Worth, we were assured that horizontal wells are always fractured only once. But, that's not true either because all the brand new, as of May, horizontal wells at DFW Airport are already on a schedule to be refraced starting now.
If you add only the 9 billion gallons that will be siphoned out of the Brazos in Granbury ( not counting other surface water sources or the ground water wells ) and another 10 billion gallons in Wise County ( from my rough estimate ), then consider the area that the Barnett Shale covers also consider that there is shale drilling taking place all over the United States... Are you scared yet?
My friends, that’s a whole lot of water. That water is not recoverable. It's ruined. Hundreds of Billions of gallons of water every year, ruined and pumped down into waste disposal injection wells.
Look, again, at our water cycle. Do you ever wonder what's going to happen because we're removing so much water from our water cycle? I do. It keeps me up nights.
Now here's something sexy that might help me sleep better:
We need Rick Noriega for our US Senator. Help get him elected by filling his boots.
Illustration Credit: John M. Evans, USGS, Colorado District