New Fracking Disclosure..This is smoke and mirrors with proposed amendment! EMAIL LARRY BENGAL

This article from the Arkansas Democrat Gazette appeared and coincides with KARK's news report on the AOGC hearing.  The members of CARE and Arkansans for Gas Drilling Accountability were present at the meeting and were rather stunned to read and hear the reports because at the meeting AOGC tabled the vote because  of some minor disagreement among the board.  They assured us that it would be law, by January, but no vote occured.  So, is this completely true?  The move seems encouraging but further scutiny reveals another shell game, and it does not provide relief to the scores of water contamination cases.  Why not reveal what the put down the gas holes near the affected water wells.  Also, we haven't seen the final version, but we requested that the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission reveal drilling chemicals as well, as they are highly toxic.  According to some former gas drillers the gas companies could drill with clean bentonite clay with much less toxicity than the formulas they are currently utilizing.  The real trouble is in the proposed amendment that will allow gas companies to withhold CERTAIN chemicals.  See below:

Arkansas Democrat Gazette Reports: List all that’s in fracturing fluid, state tells drillers


LITTLE ROCK — The Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission unanimously approved a rule Tuesday requiring full disclosure of the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process of natural-gas drilling, making it one of the first states to adopt such a measure.

We believe it's also important to reveal the toxic drilling chemicals as well and FULL DISCLOSURE IS THE ONLY WAY.  We need to know from drill bit to cap what is possibly communicating with our water supplies.

Concerns about whether such drilling is affecting drinking water and causing other environmental problems have brought drilling practices under increased scrutiny nationwide.
Wyoming in September began requiring companies to disclose the chemicals they use in the process. Pennsylvania is adopting a similar measure.
Legislation has been introduced in Congress. The U.S. Department of the Interior is considering disclosure for drilling on federal lands.“It seems like Arkansas is moving in the direction where everybody ultimately will go,” said Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the National Resources Defense Council, a New York-based environmental advocacy group.

The Fayetteville Shale formation, which runs from Northwest Arkansas to the Mississippi River, has been actively drilled for the past six years.If there are no revisions after further review, the rule will be implemented on Jan. 15.

They have been drilling like mad since this decision is looming on the horizon.  I hope they would accept our revision suggestion to include all existing gas wells in this rule.  We have many cases of contaminated water that can't afford testing because they do not know what to test.

In another environmental matter, the commission will meet today to take up an emergency order that would impose a one-month moratorium on new permits for disposal wells for fracturing fluid because of the possibility that the wells are linked to a rash of earthquakes in north-central Arkansas.

This moratorium is welcomed, but we believe it is in the public's best interest to completely shut down all injection wells.  People living near these wells are experiencing earthquakes a half hour after injections occur.  These earthquakes can possibly destroy the cement casings that supposedly protect our water.

Lawrence Bengal, director of the commission, said that releasing the names of specific chemicals used in each well is the only way to prove conclusively whether drilling is actually affecting groundwater, though he noted that wells are drilled far deeper than groundwater sources.
In an interview after the rule was approved, Bengal said the measure is “not in response to [contamination] happening. It’s to provide a mechanism to show if it is or not for parties that are concerned.”
The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality has investigated hundreds of oil and gas sites but has not found a conclusive link between complaints about water quality and drilling in the shale area.

ADEQ...has been unreponsive and refuses to come out on many, MANY complaints.  Most people have given up on them as an agency that is actually protecting THE PEOPLE.  They are perceived as the agency that is protecting the GAS COMPANIES!  In latest entry I made about the people with the exploding well house, ADEQ and AOGC were initially called in and they refused to come out to test or inspect.  This is not an isolated case, but simply the stalling and unresponsiveness that has occured for the past five or six years. Hopefully, this will change.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process of extracting natural gas from underground shale rock formations by pumping millions of gallons of fluid into a well, breaking apart the rock and allowing the gas to flow freely.

“Fracking” fluid, according to information on the commission’s website, is more than 99.5 percent sand and water. But it also includes chemicals used to reduce bacteria buildup in the well, reduce friction, and prevent corrosion, among other things. Some of those chemicals can be toxic even in trace amounts. The commission has already made available a list of 13 broad categories of chemicals used in fracking fluid.

The version of the rule approved will require a more comprehensive listing of the chemicals than the preliminary version approved by the commission in September. Bengal said the revisions made since the previous hearing were intended to make sure the rule captured 100 percent of the chemicals in the fluid.

The rule requires two phases of disclosure: Companies that perform fracturing services will have to register with the state and disclose all the chemicals they plan to use in fracturing fluids in the state before beginning operations. And after each well is fractured, the companies must release a list of the chemicals actually used, along with any others added by well operators.

The companies will have to release both the names and concentrations of each additive compound in the fluid. They will also be required to release the names of all chemicals that went into the well, but not the proportions or combinations used. Medical doctors will be able to obtain any information needed to treat patients, Bengal said.

In order to protect the proprietary nature of the fluids, companies will be able to ask that some chemical names be withheld as trade secrets, if the director approves the exemption. In this case, chemical family names will be released instead.

This is not acceptable.  This is a loophole that can become as wide as a CANYON.  We need to know specifically what is in the cocktail in order to test contaminated water wells.  This amounts to smoke and mirrors.  This is not going to amount to anything if this exemption exists.  This change was suggested in the meeting before the vote was tabled.  We need to email Director Larry Bengal of the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission and demand that this provision be excluded from the final rule.  This is provision would nullify the effectiveness of the ruling.  If the gas industry is permitted to withhold the chemicals they want to, it will probably be the most toxic components that need to be scrutinized the most. We need FULL DISCLOSURE!


EMAIL LARRY BENGAL DIRECTOR OF AOGC and DEMAND AOGC takes out the proposed amendment to allow gas companies to withhold disclosure on selected chemicals!  THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU LET YOUR VOICE HEARD RIGHT AWAY.  If that provision gets in it essentially nullifies the whole bill!

, ,

“