Environmental Regulator Encourages Transparency for UK Shale Activities
The Environment Agency for England and Wales is encouraging any shale natural gas explorers in the country to be transparent about the chemicals they use in their hydraulic fracturing fluids, the agency said Thursday.
The shale gas industry is new to the UK, with only one company, Cuadrilla Resources, having drilled an exploration well, in Lancashire, northern England, last year. Cuadrilla is expected to frack the well soon.
In the US, there has been considerable controversy in recent years over the possible environmental impact of chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing (fracking) process and whether they could contaminate water supplies.
The Environment Agency said that any company wanting to carry out fracking of shale rocks would need to declare to the agency all the chemicals in the fracking fluids and the proportions in which they were being used.
The Environment Agency would decide whether a permit was required for the operation. In certain cases a permit might not be required.
At Cuadrilla's first site, the Environment Agency has decided no permit is needed for fracking as part of their current operations because there are no vulnerable aquifers in the area of drilling and the shale rock is very impermeable.
If a permit is required, then it would be placed on the public record. The permit would detail the "recipe" of the fracking fluid, including maximum permissible concentration of each of the substances, and so for any operation where a permit was needed, the makeup of fracking fluids could be seen by the public by applying to the Environment Agency.
An Environment Agency spokeswoman added that even when a permit was not required, it would encourage companies to self-declare what fracking fluids they were using, although that would not be a formal legal requirement.
Cuadrilla has declared in a statement the chemicals it plans to use. The company said its fracking fluid was 99.7% water and sand. The remainder is a friction-reducing compound commonly found in contact lenses, a weak hydrochloric acid used in drinking water wells and in some swimming pools and a biocide used at low concentration. The biocide may not be used, it adds.
The Environment Agency aims to protect water resources and water quality. If drilling, or subsequent extraction of gas was to require water abstraction above 20 cubic meters/day, or had the potential to create wastewater discharge or contaminate groundwater, a company would need its permission.
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