# Fracking Impact on Ranch



## downtownjr (Apr 8, 2008)

A friend of mine that is an environmental engineer forwarded this article to me about "Fracking" impacts on a ranch in North Dakota. Also speaks to problems across the nation. Anybody seeing this is areas where fracking is taking place? We do not have it where I live so I have no first hand knowledge, but interested in the word from the field...is this really happening?

http://openchannel.n...racking-regions

Here is a picture of a cow with a tail that has fallen off at a ranch supposedly taken near a fracking operation.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

downtownjr said:


> A friend of mine that is an environmental engineer forwarded this article to me about "Fracking" impacts on a ranch in North Dakota. Also speaks to problems across the nation. Anybody seeing this is areas where fracking is taking place? We do not have it where I live so I have no first hand knowledge, but interested in the word from the field.
> 
> Here is a picture of a cow with a tail that has fallen off at a ranch supposedly taken near a fracking operation.


So is the water contaminated by fracking to cause this rack of bones to look so bad? I have read about fracking but did not know that the livestock was being affected by this procedure.

Regards, Mike


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## Waterway64 (Dec 2, 2011)

I live 60 miles north of Rapid City, South Dakota. There is a lot of mining and drilling going on and I personally know a number of people working in the oil fields. It is of course essential that we manage our resources responsibly. Know one I know has ever seen a cow so effected by mining or drilling out here! This region out here has areas of naturally occuring high selenium deposits which can cause these symptoms. Horse are affected much more severally than cattle. The important thing is for us as responsible citizens to get the facts and not allow ourselves to be lead by radicals with a agenda.....


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Waterway64 said:


> The important thing is for us as responsible citizens to get the facts and not allow ourselves to be lead by radicals with a agenda.....


I'd like to see a truly independent follow up.

Soon as I seen NBC my level of skepticism jumped.

Need true facts from independent sources which I'm not saying might not be present in the article, but green weenies and lefties will next be trying to outlaw glass as birds can fly into a window and die.

BTW, could only like the quoted statement from Waterway once.


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## Mike120 (May 4, 2009)

Fracking is not a new technique....we've been doing it for years. As I understand it, there are three issues, the depth of the well in the shale; the likelihood of old, abandoned wells; and the chemicals used. Typical shale wells are 5K'-9K' deep and often have a horizontal section. That isn't very deep. When they are fracked there is a remote possibility that they could open a channel that could eventually interact with groundwater. Also, if the casing is not properly cemented there is the possibility of leakage into the groundwater. Testing is conducted to minimize the likelihood.

Unmarked, abandoned wells are always a problem. All wells now days have to have the casing cemented. Old wells didn't and there are still lots of old abandoned holes in the ground that no one knows about. They provide an open path to the ground water. Often they were abandoned with only a surface plug, if that. However, the crews know what a well should take and they are closely monitored and shut down if there appears to be a problem. Old wells were typically pretty shallow, there is likely more risk of surface water contamination than there is from fracking.

Fracking fluids are around 99% water and sand. Gels and other chemicals are included to protect the formation, enhance the results, and cleanup afterward. The chemicals added used to be considered proprietary but pretty much all companies disclose what they are using now and no one wants to create a problem. The bigger issue is probably the amount of water it takes and how well the volume of waste water is cleaned up afterwards. With all the crying from the tree huggers, liberal media, and the EPA....I suspect it will be pretty clean.

The current administration is not interested in energy independence using fossil fuels because it delays adoption of their renewable energy agenda that their backers have invested in. In reality, we need both because as nice as shale gas/oil is, it's not a great solution. The wells are expensive and they don't typically last very long. Cheap fossil fuels are a thing of the past

The other issue, that no one talks about, is that a fair amount of funding for the anti-industry activists comes from overseas. There are a lot of countries who have a vested interest in our dependence and maintaining the balance of energy power. Spending to delay a change can be very strategic and profitable. Sadly, crazies and the liberal media are usually pretty cheap.

Yep, fracking carries a risk like everything does and the only way to eliminate a risk is to not do it, but not doing something can always trigger a bigger or worse risk. A risk free existence is not possible, and wouldn't be much fun anyway. Drill baby, drill!!!


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## aawhite (Jan 16, 2012)

WE are in the middle of a new boom in Western Kansas with the Mississippian Lime Play formation. Hundreds of frack wells going in here. I work with a lot of drill companies and risk is very low. Drilling to depths of 5,000 to 8,000 feet, then 5,000+ feet horicontally. This is far, far below the watertable, thru layers of solid rock. The wells themnselves are lined with a special concrete, so no they are self contained.

Big issue is water, getting water for the drilling/fracking phase, and then disposing of the water that is pumped out with the oil. Oil guys tell me they bring up over 100 barrels of salt water for every barrel of oil. This is natural gorund water that is very deep, and completely useless for anything. Salt content is way above what is found in the oceans. The used frack water has a high level of suspended solids and dissolved solids, mineral/rock from the drilling process. This stuff has to be treated before dumped down an old well for disposal.

Don't let NBC scare you. If cattle are getting sick, I would guess there is something else going on.


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## haybaler101 (Nov 30, 2008)

Just went thru the boom in our area in the past 5 years. Natural gas companies drilled for coal shale gas. Down 5000' and horizontal 5000'. Landowners were supposed to get nice royalty checks. The only thing that happened were a bunch of 1/4 acre gravel lots with an ugly pump jack on them setting idle. Most landowners are getting about $15 to $30/month royalties on an 80 acre well. Oh, well at least they get one meal at McD's a month!


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

We've had fracks around here for the last 30 years. Now they are doing almost all horizontal drills and taking out some of the old vertical wells where the horizontals go under. . What makes me laugh is when the city folk are all afraid of the fracks damaging their water when they drill under the towns. They tend to forget most of their water does not come from wells at all, but they are freaked out by the media. Back in the 80s when they drilled it was 100 times worse then now. Huge pits dug in the soil and drilling mud buried. Crankcases drained of oil right on farmland. Dumping drilling water out on farmland. The list goes on and on.


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## IslandBreeze (Nov 6, 2012)

I have no problem with drilling but if you watch Gasland it will show you why people don't want large corporations in Fed land. I like when they talk to a drilling foreman after he got the fracking stuff on him. Other than persistent headaches & excruciating pain, he seems to be fine. It's pretty interesting to hear from people that had clean water before & now they can light their water on fire coming out of the tap. They not only talk about it, they show it. They also talk to people harvesting hay & raising cattle because they don't want to sale off tainted products if their not sure about the end result. The dude who makes the documentary is kind of wormy but it's interesting to hear from the home owners, which i guarantee most of them are not left wing tree huggers


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Wish I'd kept a link to this one, but I remember reading a story about a girl who for a 4H project went around and pulled hundreds if not a thousand water samples from wells and taps.

Seems she found that areas that had the highest use of lawn services like Tru Green, Chemlawn, etc also had the highest amounts of fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides in their water. Turns out in the real rural areas where the dumb farmers lived had the cleanest water.

Moral of the story? You'll never see this on the news as most people don't like to accept that their problems are a result of their own actions.

I'd like to see an example of water burning. Just as I'd like to see the real bigfoot and the supposed aliens in Area 51. Not saying that these people might not have real problems with their water, also not saying fracking couldn't be the cause, but even though I'm quickly approaching the age of officially being an old fart I'm still a child of the internet and don't believe everything I see or hear unlike some of the Peta fools who honestly believe the cow is still alive when they start cutting the steaks out of them or the idjits who honestly think farmers serve no real purpose anymore as said idjits buy _their_ food from the store.


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## IslandBreeze (Nov 6, 2012)

Then I would say watch Gasland, I think u will see that these aren't city people who use Greenlawn on there yards. I would consider it to be a real rural area but my definition of rural might b different than yours. Happy New Year


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## Blue Duck (Jun 4, 2009)

I have heard the lawn care industry is really bad when you look at the run-off from the yards. I have a good friend that has a lawn spraying business. He claims he follows label directions for any chemicals he sprays (with a big chit eaten grin).

I thought this link was interesting, it is not fracking that was the problem but a leaking pipe. Reguardless of the cause flamable water is never a good thing.
http://www.npr.org/2...-water-supplies


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## eight (Feb 2, 2011)

Lots of fracking around me, haven't seen any trouble, except for traffic and roads and 5 acre pads with stinky wells in my fields. People really do get millions upon millions in royalties, pipelines, etc. Unfortunately I'm just a lease farmer. They do drill alot of good water wells that I can use later. Amazing that the water table has not dropped any more in this drought than in the past, with all the water being pumped for fracking. But then it's really not that much water when you compare it with the amount used for irrigation.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Blue Duck said:


> I have heard the lawn care industry is really bad when you look at the run-off from the yards. I have a good friend that has a lawn spraying business. He claims he follows label directions for any chemicals he sprays (with a big chit eaten grin).


Well the thing is and I'm not sure what chemicals you're friend is using but we all know a lot of chemicals you don't need the maximum recommended rate. This especially holds true to any homeowners that might be treating their own lawns.


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## Blue Duck (Jun 4, 2009)

I talked to my friend today and he said most of the chemicals that he uses in his company is a combination of several ag chemicals that are premixed concetrate and relabeled under a different name and application rates. He said he never sprays more then the label rate. As a commercial applicator there is too much risk, but he usually sprays at the top end of the label rate. Since most of his expense is in labor happy customers are worth more then the cost of the extra chemical.

Honestly I don't get the whole nice looking yard thing, if my wife did not do all the mowing I would have another 5ac of hay! LOL


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Blue Duck said:


> I talked to my friend today and he said most of the chemicals that he uses in his company is a combination of several ag chemicals that are premixed concetrate and relabeled under a different name and application rates. He said he never sprays more then the label rate. As a commercial applicator there is too much risk, but he usually sprays at the top end of the label rate. Since most of his expense is in labor happy customers are worth more then the cost of the extra chemical.
> 
> Honestly I don't get the whole nice looking yard thing, if my wife did not do all the mowing I would have another 5ac of hay! LOL


Even then with the proper adjuvants he could prolly spray a half rate. On my fruit trees I use half of what is suggested, gotta remember the companies that make the product want to sell more product and also might lean a little heavy on rates to make sure it works the largest possible percent of the time.


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## foz682 (Jan 10, 2013)

There is a company planning on drilling some exploration holes about 30 miles from me. The environmentalist group(90%of whom moved in here from away) in the area are furious, they are pushing for a bylaw to ban fracking in the county. The biggest concern is the amount of water that is used during the process, aside from that, the location is fairly remote and away from homes.
This outfit says that they don't even have any definite plans to frack. I don't really know much about the process, but as someone mentioned, there's risk in everything. This may even end up leading to new jobs in the area, even that alone is a reason to support this companies plans, as for the most part the majority income in my county and neighboring ones either comes from Alberta or the government. The economy here is toast, there was a time where tourism here was a huge input to the economy, but with the price of gas and everything else tourism fell through the floor about 15-20 years ago.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Burning water was around long before fracking was even conceived, it was around before any kind of drilling was common.


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## askinner (Nov 15, 2010)

foz682 said:


> There is a company planning on drilling some exploration holes about 30 miles from me. The environmentalist group(90%of whom moved in here from away) in the area are furious, they are pushing for a bylaw to ban fracking in the county. The biggest concern is the amount of water that is used during the process, aside from that, the location is fairly remote and away from homes.
> This outfit says that they don't even have any definite plans to frack. I don't really know much about the process, but as someone mentioned, there's risk in everything. This may even end up leading to new jobs in the area, even that alone is a reason to support this companies plans, as for the most part the majority income in my county and neighboring ones either comes from Alberta or the government. The economy here is toast, there was a time where tourism here was a huge input to the economy, but with the price of gas and everything else tourism fell through the floor about 15-20 years ago.


We are going through the same thing down here at the moment with coal seam gas becoming popular. People here are also up in arms about it all, even though they have no knowledge of how it's done, or the minimal risks it carries. The only education they have on it, is the burning water episode on 60 Minutes years ago!

We also have the same people that if they had it their way, would shut down our coal mining industry (the only thing that got us through the GFC unscathed, and about the only thing still keeping our economy afloat since our ag industry went toes up. There is also the fact that alternative energy technology still isn't anywhere close to where it needs to be.

I find that the majority of the people that share the above views are the people that have a secure job in another industry (in a lot of cases, an industry supported by mining!), and have no concerns about where their next pay packet will come from.

The biggest problem we are faced with, is the media. If I had a $ for everytime I've seen footage of a power stations cooling towers at sunset so the steam looks like smoke, I'd be able to buy a power station of my own!! All the media does is scare monger without facts.


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## Teslan (Aug 20, 2011)

Watch the documentary Fracknation for another view from Gasland.


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Yes, fracking has already reared its head in East Tennessee....

http://www.timesfree...g-in-tennessee/

Regards, Mike


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## oldcboy (Jan 14, 2012)

Hi !,I am from Williams county ,ND . We have wells in the area and raise cattle-I also worked in the oilfields in the 80's before fracking occured here. I don't know of any problems being caused by fracking. Our wells in ND are deep and cemented down to the frack depth. Hard for water or gas to go through 10,-15,000 psi rock or an adequate cement job around the pipe a mile or more deep. Definitely a concern in some parts of Wyoming -Teapot Dome and naval reserve areas comes to mind as wells are only a couple hundred feet deep.


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## ontario hay man (Jul 18, 2013)

I agree we need oil and gas and all that but I doubt this is the safest way to do it. If a guy comes in your yard and tells you how good and safe it is chances are he is full of shit. They came in to our yard telling us how wonderful windmills are. They throw a hundred of them all around us. 2 months after they start running my healthy energetic 40 year old dad at that time developed rumetoid arthritis. He went from working as hard or harder then me to somedays not being able to come out at all. Is this from the windmills? Your damn right it is. I was all for it til that happened. So you guys saying its greenies and all that crap wouldnt be believers til something happens in your area. I went toe to toe at a town meeting with these greenies that said windmills are bad. I thought they were out to lunch til my dad crippled up in less then 2 months. You guys can be all for it all you want but remember those royalty cheques dont mean shit when you dont have your health. My experience really took away my faith in government regulations for our safety.


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## Blue Duck (Jun 4, 2009)

A few years ago it looked like I was going to be living in the middle of a wind farm. All of my neighbors singed leases to put up windmills. After doing a lot of research I decided to move. I would have waited to see how bad it was living around them but my son has autism and the sound, vibrations, and shadow flicker would not work for him. I should have stayed because the company backed out and abandoned the project.

Another concern with the fracking is earthquakes. I am sure we had small earthquakes before all the fracking started in the area but now we can feel them. My father had never felt an earthquake in his 64 years and now he has felt six in the last couple years! If they quakes stay small they are not a problem (kinda cool) but if this area had a bigger one it would do billions of dollars of damage. Buildings, bridges, and utilities in this area are not designed for big earthquakes. Do you think the people making the money from fracking will pay the repair bill or the tax payers?


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## Bonfire (Oct 21, 2012)

Windmill farms are nothing more than clutter. They ruin the landscape. I don't care about all the green energy crap. Want cheap, reliable energy (I do)? Then mine more coal or dig another gas well. Not to mention the birds they kill. The Eagle, illegal for you and I to kill but this administration "creates a new rule" allowing the windmill operators to do just that. Uuuhhh uuuuuhhhhh, iiiiiiiit's aaaaa for a good cuase.


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## mlappin (Jun 25, 2009)

Bonfire said:


> Windmill farms are nothing more than clutter. They ruin the landscape. I don't care about all the green energy crap. Want cheap, reliable energy (I do)? Then mine more coal or dig another gas well. Not to mention the birds they kill. The Eagle, illegal for you and I to kill but this administration "creates a new rule" allowing the windmill operators to do just that. Uuuhhh uuuuuhhhhh, iiiiiiiit's aaaaa for a good cuase.


We went to Normandy last month, when first driving off Le Shuttle those wind mills were kinda cool in France, a few here a dozen there, half a dozen over there a few dozen here. After a few hundred miles of looking at them they became a f*ckin bloody eyesore. Was glad we drove back in the dark so I didn't have to look at any more of them.

Not sure how much the green energy plays a part of it, but they pay almost four times as much for electric in England as I do in Indiana. Don't kid yourselves for a minute if you think having your electric quadruple in price wouldn't seriously effect your farm.


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## Lostin55 (Sep 21, 2013)

I am biased. As I type this I am sitting in my office looking out my window at one of the newest drilling rigs in ND. I have seen fracking all over the place, and I have made a career in this industry. I have never seen any ill effects of cattle or livestock or ground damage that resulted from fracking. I have however seen a number of areas damaged from spills of various fluids over the years. I can tell you that the industry has made as many advancements in HSE as they have in drilling. HSE is 1st in anything that we accomplish. That stands for Health, safety, and environmental by the way.

It seems to be a popular topic of discussion lately and also seems to be political in many circumstances.it would be nice if everyone would educate themselves independently. The information is out there. As of last summer, there was not a single scientific study that could relate fracking to surface damage. That is not to say that damage does not occur in a blowout or other well control event, but the two are not related.


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## Guest (Jan 17, 2014)

Don't know much about it.. Ive heard the good and the bad. One thing I do know is its good for the straw market


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