Newsweek: Worries grow about ‘fracking’ for oil

… These have been boom years for the West. From New Mexico to Montana, more than 33,000 new oil and gas wells have been approved since 2001. Last year, nearly 90 percent of onshore federal drilling permits were issued in the Rockies. In the heart of the rush is Colorado. A 2007 survey from the Fraser Institute, an energy think tank, put the state as the No. 1 global spot to explore and develop oil and gas.

Central to that development is the use of fracking fluids. Largely unregulated, they’ve been employed by the energy industry for decades and, with the exception of diesel, can be made up of nearly any set of chemicals. Also, propriety trade laws don’t require energy companies to disclose their ingredients. “It is much like asking Coca-Cola to disclose the formula of Coke,” says Ron Heyden, a Halliburton executive, in recent testimony before the COGCC. Despite its widespread use and somewhat mysterious mix, fracturing fluid was deemed in 2004 by the Environmental Protection Agency as safe for the environment and groundwater. Dave Dillon, the COGCC’s top engineering manager, says nearly every one of Colorado’s 35,600 wells are “fracked” and that a minimum of 100,000 gallons are used per well, resulting in millions of gallons pumped into the ground each year. And since it’s typically pumped far below groundwater tables, Congress exempted fracking fluids from the Safe Drinking Water Act in 2005.

Newsweek