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Originally appears in the Fall 2017 issue
by Samantha Rubright
The process of obtaining oil and natural gas is a controversial topic triggering vigorous debates around the globe. Providing energy for Americans through the production of domestic fossil fuel resources was one of the key promises President Trump made to “Make America Great Again” during his run for the White House. Drilling companies have pushed to access natural gas in coal seams in Australia, and in tight shale formations in parts of Europe. Canada’s oil and gas industry survives by exporting most of its products to the United States, with hopes of expanding into overseas markets. Intentionally omitted from discussion of all of these goals, however, are the serious costs associated with extracting and distributing these non-renewable resources.
Can fracking contaminate drinking water? How does energy production change the places we love? What pollutants are being emitted from oil and gas well pads on a daily basis? Will this activity impact my health, or the health of my family? Though seemingly straightforward, these questions are difficult for most people to answer. That’s because oil and gas drilling may not be occurring in their backyards. The oil and gas industry is much broader than oil wells, however. Related infrastructure often generates a large footprint. For example, railroad tankers carry volatile oil and gas products and supplies across sizeable swaths of land. Sand mines are expanding to provide sand for hydraulic fracturing. Refineries and export facilities dominate the skyline in industrial areas. Oil and gas pipelines stretch thousands of miles and thus create a much larger network of risk.
Educators — from math teachers to writing instructors — have a critical role to play in educating our youth about various energy options, their complexities, and their impacts. Students who know about the diverse facets of this industry and feel that they have a voice can better shape the dialogue about fossil fuels and other sources of energy.
What is fracking?
Fracking is a particular focus of controversy in the energy sector because of questions about the potential of the process to contaminate drinking water and trigger earthquakes. Technically, fracking is an industry shorthand term for the physical act of hydraulically fracturing a well with fluids under pressure in order to increase the production of oil and gas. But fracking is also a broadly used term that refers to the overall extraction of these hydrocarbons from the earth using intensive processes. We tend to classify older extraction operations as traditional, and the newer, more extreme methods as unconventional, which may involve directional drilling, hydraulic fracturing (using large volumes of water and chemicals), acidization, enhanced oil recovery, and other methods. Often, those unconventional methods are referred to the generic term of fracking for simplicity purposes.
With such a complex and controversial issue, how can we engage young people to learn more about where our energy comes from and the effects these processes can have on people and the environment? How do we cover the issues tangibly without overwhelming students with the impacts I mentioned previously? Below I discuss two strategies we at The FracTracker Alliance have found to be particularly helpful.
Involve them
A very accurate Chinese proverb states: “Tell me, I’ll forget. Show me, I’ll remember. Involve me, I’ll understand.”
One of the first methods we began using when we launched FracTracker in 2010 was to crowdsource oil and gas data to better understand trends in the industry. We still use maps and data to this day to highlight the effects of drilling on people’s properties, in their hometowns and near their schools. Working with data has many benefits for learning. Our online maps make data visual and “real” for students as young as sixth grade, and have embedded tools to help them determine proximity to other features on the map, and ways to share and print the maps for their own research.
Working with and mapping data is a very active way that students can investigate these issues in the classroom. Most of the data that FracTracker analyzes and maps is collected from public sources (and we often will provide the data we collect for download, as well), so your students can get involved in analyzing the oil and gas industry, too.
Here are a variety of ways to explore these issues from a research and involvement perspective:
You could invite students to select a specific type of fracking infrastructure to research. For example, compressor stations, facilities used for pumping natural gas through pipelines, are known to release hazardous substances into the air, some of which pose serious health risks. Students could also choose to investigate the potential ecological impacts of infrastructure near them, such as a pipeline or a frac sand mine.
Another opportunity to engage students is to challenge them to use one of FracTracker’s online maps and plan/conduct a presentation for your local decision makers on oil and gas activities occurring near you. When coupled with technical expertise, hearing from local, concerned students is a very effective method for eliciting change and informed decision making.
You could invite students to follow the permitting process for a proposed pipeline or well. (In the US, large pipeline permits are issued by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, whereas wells are regulated by each state.) Even more challenging would be to encourage students to track down the emergency plans for a specific site. While experts in the field of emergency planning are rightfully responsible for creating and executing emergency plans, the Federal Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act of 1986 (EPCRA) defines citizens’ rights to engage in the process, both through open records requests and public meetings with local emergency planners. In meeting with these experts, students will obtain first-hand knowledge of the issue and insight into the inner workings of emergency planning. This dialogue will also encourage greater transparency on the part of industry and local governments.
Posing research questions to students is a common, but effective, way to spark curiosity and interest in the way the oil and gas industry operates in specific regions. Every locality varies because of different operators, geographies, geologies, and economies. Research questions could be anything from, “How many wells vs. solar panel installations are in Texas?” to “How much water is a particular driller in your county using?” In addition to their project findings, the process of seeking this information will teach students about proper data transparency and management, and why they are both vitally important for civic engagement.
There are many creative opportunities to help students better appreciate the impact of the oil and gas industry in their communities:
Develop art, video, and music projects — such as story maps, short films, or composing songs — that communicate how fracking is changing communities.
Make economic comparisons by determining which sector has more jobs in your region: renewable energy or oil and gas.
Discuss social change models and methods of activism; research the environmental groups in your area and write an assessment of the models and methods they are using.You may be surprised at what these young minds unearth and especially what they take away from such research.
Show them
Another effective method to engage students on the issue of fracking in the US has been to show them the impacts first-hand. FracTracker Alliance works with landowners and community groups that can provide visitors with tours on or near well pads and disposal sites. We have helped conduct these tours with a variety of domestic and foreign student groups, making the obscure feel very real.
Your school or youth program is likely close to some piece of oil and gas infrastructure be that an oil and gas production field, underground natural gas storage field, frac sand mine, refinery, export terminal, train track, or pipeline. As such, you too have the opportunity to show your students what an extraction community is experiencing — the good and the bad. (Find out where active drilling is occurring near you in the US by visiting our website at: FracTracker.org/US.)
If possible, go to these communities where drilling is occurring, where frac sand mining is changing the very landscape of the Midwest, where refineries in the Bay Area clog the air with their emissions, where volatile oil trains put thousands at risk of an explosion. In doing so, you can offer students critical, perhaps unfamiliar, perspectives. Challenge students to conduct interviews with their tour hosts and with elders in the community to learn how these communities have changed over time. While in the field, useFracTracker’s free mobile app to document the conditions you find and plot them on a map to share with other users (available for iPhone and Android devices: FracTracker.org/apps). While the app is currently focused on oil and gas activity in the US, it can be utilized internationally to document impacts and crowdsource the location of various oil and gas facilities.
These conversations and explorations will help students begin to understand the gravity of the energy paradigms that our patterns of consumption, in part, facilitate.
Why engage? Why speak up?
We need the voices of young people to keep us moving forward toward a more sustainable energy future — a healthier world for future generations. They need to know where energy comes from and the human costs of production so that they can speak up for the changes they would like to see. To participate in the complex energy debate going on in the US now and likely for many years to come, our young people need to be both educated on the problems and empowered to speak up and find acceptable solutions. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
The Problems with Fracking
When evaluated holistically, the intensive oil and gas extraction techniques of fracking have been shown to have serious environmental, community, and health implications.
Examples of oil and gas risks and impacts include but are not limited to:
• Use of large amounts of fresh water (on average, 5 million gallons per well in the Marcellus Shale in the north eastern United States)
• Disposal complications, such as limited capacity at landfills due to the radioactivity of the waste
• The induction of earthquakes near deep well injection disposal sites (in some instances, fracking itself has also been associated with induced seismicity)
• Spills from the well pad, trucks, and pipelines that have contaminated streams, soils, and in some cases drinking water
• Noxious air pollution from the drilling site and associated infrastructure
• Methane emissions contributing to climate change
• Health complaints, such as nosebleeds, increased stress, asthma exacerbation, and rashes
• Community impacts, such as noise pollution, challenging population shifts, and increased truck traffic
• Land-use change from the expanding mines needed to supply sand for hydraulic fracturing
• Worker safety risks due to traffic incidents, fires, well blowouts, slips and falls, and exposure to hazardous substances like hydrogen sulfide and silica dust. Nearby residents may also be at risk.
Notes
1. Jiang M, Hendrickson CT, VanBriesen JM. (2014). Life Cycle Water Consumption and Wastewater Generation Impacts of a Marcellus Shale Gas Well, Environmental Science & Technology 48 (3), 1911-1920. DOI: 10.1021/es4047654.
2. Warner NR, Christie CA, Jackson RB, Vengosh A. (2013). Impacts of Shale Gas Wastewater Disposal on Water Quality in Western Pennsylvania, Environmental Science & Technology, 47 (20), 11849-11857. DOI: 10.1021/es402165b.
3. Nelson AW, et al. (2015). Understanding the radioactive ingrowth and decay of naturally occurring radioactive materials in the environment: an analysis of produced fluids from the Marcellus Shale. Environ Health Perspect 1237689–696; 10.1289/ehp.1408855.
4. Rubinstein JL, Mahani AB. (2015). Myths and Facts on Wastewater Injection, Hydraulic Fracturing, Enhanced Oil Recovery, and Induced Seismicity, Seismological Research Letters, DOI: 10.1785/0220150067.
5. U.S. EPA. (2016). Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States (Final Report). U.S. EPA, Washington, DC, EPA/600/R-16/236F. https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332990.
6. Howarth RW, Santoro R, Ingraffea A. (2011). Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations: Climatic Change; 106, 679-690.
7. McKenzie LM, Witter RZ, Newman LS, Adgate JL. (2012). Human health risk assessment of air emissions from development of unconventional natural gas resources. Science of the Total Environment, 424, 79-87.
8. Tustin A, Hirsch AG, Rasmussen SG, Casey JA, Bandeen-Roche K, Schwartz BS. (2017). Associations between unconventional natural gas development and nasal and sinus, migraine headache, and fatigue symptoms in Pennsylvania. Environmental Health Perspectives, 125(2), 189.
9. Schafft KA, Glenna LL, Green B, Borlu Y. (2014). Local impacts of unconventional gas development within Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale Region: Gauging boomtown development through the perspectives of educational administrators. Society & Natural Resources, 27(4), 389-404.
10. Pearson TW. (2013), Frac sand mining in wisconsin: Understanding emerging conflicts and community organizing. CAFÉ, 35, 30–40. doi:10.1111/cuag.12003.
11. Esswein E, et al. (2013). Occupational exposures to respirable crystalline silica during hydraulic fracturing, Journal of Occupational and Environmental Hygiene, 10(7).
12. Witter RZ, Tenney L, Clark S, Newman LS. (2014). Occupational exposures in the oil and gas extraction industry: State of the science and research recommendations. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 57(7), 847–856. http://doi.org/10.1002/ajim.22316.
Samantha Rubright lives and works in Washington, DC, as the Manager of Communications and Partnerships for the FracTracker Alliance, which is headquartered in Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Learn more about FracTracker at www.fractracker.org. She thanks Leann Leiter, Matt Kelso and Brook Lenker for their review of this article.
