I’m writing to ask for your help in combating one of the greatest threats to our public lands today: the unregulated use of hydraulic fracturing or fracking.
At stake is the most precious resource provided by our public lands: clean water. More than 60 million Americans receive their drinking water from a source originating in a National Forest. Freshwater rivers, streams, and underground reservoirs sustain innumerable ecosystems and are crucial to both wildlife and people.
We need your help to ensure that National Forests are protected from the environmentally detrimental impacts of fracking and that the industry is held accountable when damage occurs. With your help, FSEEE will challenge this threat to our public lands and water supplies every step of the way.
With consumer demand for cheap power increasing, the natural gas industry is looking to our National Forests as the next frontier for production. No region of the country is immune from the potential damage caused by natural gas fracking, but a lack of environmental regulations has left our National Forests and the clean water they produce extremely vulnerable.
One of the most important mandates of the U.S. Forest Service, indeed, one of the reasons it was established in 1905, is to protect the nation’s supply of clean water.
But you would never know that by the way the agency allows the natural gas industry to run roughshod over our public lands while threatening environmental activists with prosecution and jail time (visit our website, www.fseee.org, to read more about FSEEE’s efforts to defend those who speak out about the dangers of fracking).
Hydrofracking endangers our precious freshwater resources on many fronts.
The process itself requires the use of huge amounts of water—a single well can use 5 million gallons—which is mixed with a slew of toxic chemicals.
This noxious slurry is injected at high pressure into the ground where it can contaminate subsurface waters and reservoirs. And much of the chemical mixture returns above ground where fracking fluid endangers National Forest ecosystems when spills occur.
A lack of consistent and effective disposal techniques often results in the remaining fluid ending up as pollutants in our streams and rivers. Current fracking practices are a risky proposition at best.
Despite the threat that existing wells pose to water supplies, the Forest Service has failed to regulate fracking. At the same time, the natural gas industry denies ANY responsibility for the environmental contamination caused by fracking.
The natural gas industry is powerful, and the Forest Service is complacent, but FSEEE is prepared to challenge this freewheeling experiment on every front.
First, we must cease the development of new natural gas wells on those National Forests where the federal government owns both the surface occupancy and subsurface mineral rights. On these forests, the federal government has complete control over whether to issue fracking leases.
The Forest Service makes leasing decisions about fracking during the planning process. FSEEE will monitor forest plans now being revised and insist that the Forest Service properly document the potential environmental hazards associated with fracking when completing the obligatory environmental reviews.
There is no requirement forcing the Forest Service to open these lands to fracking, and FSEEE will ensure that the federal government prioritizes the protection of our public lands and waters over private profits.
Second, we must ensure that regulations that protect human health and ecosystem integrity are in place when fracking on public lands does occur.
Regrettably, fracking is already occurring on some of our public lands. That’s particularly true for the millions of acres of so-called “split estate” lands in the eastern U.S. where the Forest Service owns only the surface while the underground minerals are in private ownership. On these National Forest acres, the Forest Service can regulate industry’s access to its underground minerals, but it cannot deny access to them without condemning and paying for the underground oil and gas.
But the Forest Service CAN regulate how the miners use the surface of these National Forests, including how they store and transport fracking fluids on Forest Service lands. This regulation is done through a “surface occupancy permit,” which companies must obtain before they can build access roads or start drilling.
FSEEE knows that one of the best ways to ensure that environmental safeguards are implemented is to hold drillers responsible for any damage they cause.
To date, the fracking industry has not been required to disclose the toxic stew of chemicals that are used in fracking under the claim that the mixture is a trade-secret.
But the real reason they want to keep this chemical mix a secret is that when toxins show up in someone’s well, a town’s water supply or a nearby stream, no one is able to prove that fracking is at fault or which driller is responsible for the mess. Drillers claim that without proof a chemical contaminant came from their operation, they can’t be held responsible.
FSEEE has been consulting with cutting-edge scientists to find ways to ensure that gas producers are held liable for any water pollution that results from this industry.
In the coming year, FSEEE will be campaigning for a federal rule that requires oil and gas companies to include a non-toxic unique “tracer” in the fracturing fluids used to break up the underground shale rock. We will work to ensure that the Forest Service requires “tracer” use as a condition of getting a surface occupancy permit for natural gas development on National Forests.
Tracers can pin liability on drilling companies, even if they refuse to disclose their fracking chemicals. If contamination occurs, a positive tracer will finger the culprit just like DNA can identify the perpetrators of crime. In fact, DNA is a possible tracer chemical because it is non-toxic and can be synthesized in an unlimited number of sequences so that each and every natural gas well can be identified individually.
The tracer needs to be unique to each gas well, move with the fracking fluid underground and be readily detectable even at very small concentrations in water wells or streams. Several new technologies are being developed, but without a federal rule requiring industry to label its fracking fluid, none are likely to become commercially viable.
A National Forest tracer rule for fracking would catalyze needed research and development in this field. Requiring that industry label its fracking fluids to avoid escaping liability for pollution is a sensible step to take.
The National Forests were created to protect water quality and watersheds. To carry out that overriding mission, the Forest Service needs to cease fracking on those lands where they are legally entitled to do so.
The Forest Service can and must say “no” to the big-money interests of the natural gas industry. The future of our forests and water resources are too precious to gamble on fracking.
And where the Forest Service has no choice but to issue fracking leases, they must ensure that liability for any water pollution can be pinned squarely on the polluter. Tracer technology is the best guarantee that those who pollute our water are held accountable for damages and clean-up.
We need your help to ensure that our National Forests and freshwater resources are safe from fracking. Please make a special contribution to FSEEE today. Your gift makes our work possible. Thank-you!
P.S. Please see the “ Action Alert” on our website and join us in demanding that the Forest Service hold the natural gas industry accountable when fracking results in environmental damage.
P.P.S. You can contribute by sending a gift online using the "Donate Now" button below or by calling us at 541-484-2692. Thank you!
