I saw last week where the state of Illinois opened up the southern part of their state to the fracking process as well. It appears that when republicans get a hold of the state legislatures they approve of this method.
I am all for this if it continues our supply of natural gas. Hopefully it is much adieu about nothing.
Fracking debate heats up as drilling projects begin
Most who speak at DNR's public forums are against practice
Jordan Exploration’s Jeff Schunk stands at an oil well in Indian Springs Metropark, White Lake Township. The firm doesn’t use fracking there. (Todd McInturf / The Detroit News)
The expansion of gas and oil drilling through a process called "fracking" is back as a hot-button issue in Michigan — along with petitions, protests and armed security.
Armed guards were present a week ago Tuesday at a public hearing held by Michigan's departments of natural resources and environmental quality to discuss drilling and the controversial natural gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The meeting was one of three hosted by the state departments ahead of today's auction of oil and gas leases in Lansing.
In anticipation of a potentially raucous crowd in Troy, state officials brought along at least a half-dozen armed DNR conservation officers. It didn't sit well with many in the audience.
"Armed guards at a public meeting like this?" shouted one audience member at the end of the meeting. "We're very disappointed."
"Why are you so scared of us?" yelled another.
The exchange reflected the heightened intensity of the fracking debate. It is fueled in part by new drilling projects in areas such as Metro Detroit unaccustomed to development and a petition drive to ban the practice in Michigan.
Since his election in November, Oakland County's new water resources commissioner John Nash has hosted public meetings on hydraulic fracturing where many participants have opposed the practice.
"Last year, the state opened 30,000 acres of state land in Oakland County to mineral rights, fracking to oil drilling — whatever the drillers want to do," Nash told the audience at the Ferndale meeting. "And since then, several communities, and now the county itself, are considering leasing mineral rights to their land. This is bringing up issues that I think we all need to be aware of."
Other elected officials have backed fracking, including state Rep. Aric Nesbitt, R-Lawton, chairman of the House energy and technology committee. Nesbitt last year produced a report on energy development that touted fracking as a safe way to pursue energy independence and create high-wage jobs.
"We cannot allow ideologues in Hollywood, Lansing or Washington, D.C., to pollute productive discussions that can lead to more jobs, lower energy prices and provide greater stability to our children
and grandchildren," Nesbitt wrote in a Jan. 30 commentary in The Detroit News.
and grandchildren," Nesbitt wrote in a Jan. 30 commentary in The Detroit News.
An oil and gas industry-sponsored study by IHS Global Insight last year found Michigan No. 12 in the nation with 37,848 fracking-related jobs, a number that is projected to grow by more than 70 percent to 64,551 jobs by 2020.
Hydraulic fracturing has been used to harvest natural gas for decades in Michigan with few reported problems. By pumping a water/chemical mix at high pressure vertically into shale formations beneath the surface, the rock structures are fractured, allowing natural gas to flow and be pumped back to the surface.
But in recent years, companies have found that by drilling much deeper vertically, and then drilling several thousand additional feet horizontally and using larger amounts of water, they can unleash natural gas that previously couldn't be tapped.
Michigan has 11,000 active gas wells, 4,500 oil wells as well as 1,300 water and disposal injection wells.
The amount of water being used — as much as 21 million gallons per well — is among the many concerns of critics such as LuAnne Kozma, a co-founder of the grass-roots group Ban Fracking in Michigan. She is one of the driving forces behind a petition drive aimed at banning hydraulic fracturing.
Her organization and other conservation groups worry about issues such as the undisclosed chemicals contained in fracking fluid, the way that fluid is placed in deep injection wells after use and the potential for methane trapped underground to reach wells and tap water.
"People are infuriated by what these companies are doing, and we think it's going to work against the industry in the end," Kozma said.
The Ban Fracking group needs to collect 258,088 signatures by Oct.1 to get the measure on the November 2014 ballot.
The Michigan Chamber of Commerce said Wednesday its board unanimously voted to oppose the anti-fracking petition drive. "The dangerous petition drive to ban hydraulic fracturing is based on emotion, not sound science …," chamber president and CEO Richard Studley said.
For decades, the bulk of Michigan's oil and natural gas exploration took place in the northern third of the Lower Peninsula. But energy firms have shifted their focus, thanks to technology.
Three-dimensional seismic surveys give more detailed information about what resources are trapped in the ground and how to extract them. It has allowed oil and gas projects to crop up in areas where residents aren't used to seeing wells in operation.
One example is Jordan Exploration Co.'s pair of oil wells operating inside Indian Springs Metropark in White Lake Township. Vice president Ben Brower said the company faced plenty of questions about the use of fracking last year by officials with Huron-Clinton Metroparks, who oversee the 13 metroparks including Indian Springs.
The extraction process can be used for oil, but it is rarely done. Jordan pledged it won't use fracking in Indian Springs.
"If we thought we might need to use it here some day, we would never have agreed to that," he said. "We don't need it here."
Not every company makes similar guarantees. At a public hearing last month in Saline on fracking, another exploration firm, Paxton Resources, declined to take a pledge against using hydraulic fracturing in projects in Washtenaw County. Paxton is drilling in the Saline area but is not using the fracking procedure.
In public hearings, the DEQ has been the most visible defender of the drilling procedure. Hal Fitch, the department's chief officer of oil, gas and minerals, argued at the Ferndale meeting that the recent high-volume, horizontal fracking is not much different from the vertical drilling practices used in Michigan for centuries.
"The fracking we're doing today is different but only different in the way you might say a grapefruit is different than an orange," he said. "It's a matter of size. … Fracking is fracking."
Hugh McDiarmid Jr., communications director for the Michigan Environmental Council, questioned the apparent closeness of the DEQ and energy companies.
"State regulators are quick to laud their effectiveness in regulating the fracking of the past, but have been timid when it comes to a thorough and honest review of the rules in light of these new practices and technologies," he said in a written response to questions. "Michigan regulators must resist the impulse to be cheerleaders for an industry they work closely with, and remember that their first priority is public safety and protection of our land and water."
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From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20130509/METRO/305090373#ixzz2SmyCTu9v
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