Shallow Gas Well Drilling & Water Wells....

[jinman]

From our experience in this area, it is not the producing wells that are problems, but rather the injection wells. These are the depleted wells or dry holes where waste salt water and small amounts of "other" chemicals are injected back into the ground. Some of these well casings have been found to be deteriorated and there seems to be a lack of enough regulation to ensure safety. For me, I worry about what is pumped down the old well casings much more than what production companies take out of producing or new wells.

Here is a link to the description of injection wells in Texas. I have at least five of these wells within a 5-mile radius of my house and am concerned. These seem to be a far greater danger than new producing wells.

 

[tommu56]

From our experience in this area, it is not the producing wells that are problems, but rather the injection wells. These are the depleted wells or dry holes where waste salt water and small amounts of "other" chemicals are injected back into the ground. Some of these well casings have been found to be deteriorated and there seems to be a lack of enough regulation to ensure safety. For me, I worry about what is pumped down the old well casings much more than what production companies take out of producing or new wells.

Here is a link to the description of injection wells in Texas. I have at least five of these wells within a 5-mile radius of my house and am concerned. These seem to be a far greater danger than new producing wells.

I was concerned about this too and my lease says production only no storage or recharge (or something like that) but it did say they could do "development of the well" (read fracking)

tom

 

[rustedduck]

Our property lies within the fayetteville shale district, and has several gas
wells. Within a radius of a mile there are probably an additional dozen wells.
Ground water contamination has not been a problem.

Ground water is normally limited to 150 feet below the surface. Drilling
and fracing usually occurs at depths around 5000 feet. Therefore you have several thousand feet of rock seperation.

There have been extensive investigations into ground water contamination,
and to the best of my knowledge there has not been one documented case of contamination from a properly constructed well.

When contamination does occur, it is usually traced back to surface contamination by improperly/illegally disposed drilling fluids and wastewater.

Have your water purity test done, before and after drilling.

Lean on you states department of water quality to insure they are
providing the necessary well inspections. And report any unusual activity.

 

[SBB]

Shmudda,
Angelus is right, you should definitely watch Gasland (see his post for the website). It's a real eye opener (especially the scenes where people ignite the water flowing from their kitchen faucets). It shows what can happen, but not what will happen. You're right to get multiple "before" samples. You might talk to your insurance person to see if you have any insurance currently or can get some insurance, just in case something bad happens to your well and the neighbors don't have a way to compensate your losses. Such insurance may not be available, but it may be worth a phone call to find out. If there is going to be a problem, it may not happen for a while, maybe not even for years. So, keep testing periodically. Good luck.

 

[SPIKER]

Shmudda,
Angelus is right, you should definitely watch Gasland (see his post for the website). It's a real eye opener (especially the scenes where people ignite the water flowing from their kitchen faucets). It shows what can happen, but not what will happen. You're right to get multiple "before" samples. Good luck.

We are in Northern Ohio and there are gas wells in many areas around here with low pay oil. We have had well water with OIL that separates from them with NO Gas/Oil wells nearby OLD WATER wells that have been in operation for a long while to boot. We lived at one place where at times you could pop the well top & probably light the well gases inside it. My property I have now has several springs that when the natural springs flow slowly you can see the sheen of oil form on top. this is MY property and the closest Oil/Gas well is 3 or 4 miles as the crow fly. Rather old oil/gas wells which are not horizontal wells so they have little to no correlation to my oily springs. I might add that if these oil/gas wells were not in & running/sucking/reducing the natural oil/gas pressure below ground that the natural Oil/Gas seeps would be happening just as it did in PA back a hundreds of years ago when the Indians & settlers collected it for lamp burning. SO I might add that if it were not for these drillers YOU will have a greater chance of ending up with Natural Gas and Oil contamination in your water than you do today...

Mark

 

[tommu56]

I didn't think of it till now!!!!!!!!!!!
Didn't Jed Calmpet find crude bubbling out of the ground naturally?:laughing:

 

[forgeblast]

there is also Natural gas forum for landowners they are discussing a lot of these topics too.

 

[Egon]

Didn't Jed Calmpet find crude bubbling out of the ground naturally?

He surely did when he shot at some food and missed!:laughing:

But that somehow don't seem right cause them Clampets never missed!:laughing:

 

[jonyyuma]

I would definitely have the proven samples of my water, and safely stored. There is a ton of conflict about this process in this country.Good water is priceless, and you certainly don't want to spend the rest of your life hauling it home. No matter who is at fault? Jy.

 

[Shmudda]

I want to personally thank each and every person that has commented here! There is so much information on both sides of this subject it's really hard to sort thru the bull to get the facts!

Keep them coming, I check this each and every day for others real experiences........

Thanks again.....

Craig