Trouble Shooters get exclusive access to water test results in Eagle Ford Shale

By APRIL MOLINA
News 4 San Antonio
Facebook: April Molina TV
Twitter: @aprilmolinaSA

SAN ANTONIO - Jimmy Stevens has lived in Wilson County for more than fifty years.

He is one of 80 private well owners who agreed to allow research scientist, Dr. Zack Hildenbrand to test his water.

"The main worry and concern with it is always the drinking water," Stevens said. "Whenever they drill that deep and go that fast and do what they do to get the oil out and make it work, there's always a danger."

"We characterized the water for forty different chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, twenty different metals and minerals and also some anions," Hildenbrand said.

60 of the 80 samples collected in the South Texas Region revealed healthy ground water, but according to Hildenbrand, the other 25 percent of the samples were indicative of brominated gasoline.

"These are samples that had very little chloride in them, but very high levels of bromide and they were each coming from different layers of different aquifers," Hildenbrand said. "One thing that was consistent is that almost exclusively those were found within one kilometer of the drilling sites."

He also explained there were a few occurrences of volatile organic compounds in the water.

"These are relatively deleterious compounds, things like cyclohexanone," Hildenbrand said. "Cyclohexanone is not something that should be naturally occurring and it's not something that you would want in your water."

Prior to testing the water in South Texas, Hildenbrand wrapped up a larger scale study in the Barnett Shale with his University of Texas at Arlington research team.

"What we found is the closer people's water wells got to gas wells that had been stimulated by hydraulic fracturing, the concentrations of arsenic, selenium, strontium, and barium went up quite significantly," Hildenbrand said.

Hildenbrand found B-tex compounds, alcohols, and chlorinated solvents, all chemicals that play a role in unconventional drilling.

"As we got into the counties where there's more drilling; Parker County, Hood County, Montague County, Wise County, and Denton County, we found there were more abnormalities so we felt compelling evidence that this practice is having an effect," Hildenbrand said.

He would like to be able to make direct links to specific drilling operations, but explained his hands are tied because the oil and gas companies don't always disclose which chemicals they are using.

The results from this study are considered preliminary as they have not yet gone through peer review.

Once final interpretations come back, the results may or may not be published.

News 4 reached out to South Texas Energy and Economic Round Table President, Omar Garcia, who said he would prefer to give feedback once the report has been published.

Energy In Depth advisor, Steve Everley had a similar response, but also noted that Hildenbrand's organization is not accredited by the state.

You will find more information about the Collaborative Laboratories for Environmental Analysis and Remediation studies at their website...