Last summer, the United States experienced the worst drought since the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.
At the same time, the country was experiencing one of the biggest onshore drilling booms in history, powered by one of the most water-intensive extraction technologies ever invented: hydraulic fracking.
The tension between these two realities could not be clearer.
This year, as the drilling industry drew millions of gallons of water per well in Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, residents in these states struggled with severe droughts and some farmers opted to sell their water to the oil and gas industry rather than try to compete with them for limited resources.
Even the Atlantic coast's mighty Susquehanna River faced record lows last year, leading regulators to suspend dozens of withdrawal permits – the majority of which were for fracking Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale.
Researchers for the Federal Department of Energy saw problems like this coming, according to thousands of pages of documents about the topic provided to DeSmog, but their recommendations and warnings were consistently edited and downplayed and the final version of their report has yet to be released.
Stalled Report Cost Taxpayers $2 Million
“On multiple occasions, the editors asked for changes within the document because certain assertions would likely lead to rejection by OMB,” concluded the Civil Society Institute, which obtained the documents through Freedom of Information requests and provided them to DeSmog.
OMB stands for the Office of Management and Budget, the White House agency responsible for ensuring new reports and regulations are consistent with the current administration's policies. The revisions to the Department of Energy report were made, the Civil Society Institute concluded in their internal assessment of the drafts, “regardless of whether or not the assertions were true, and regardless of whether or not OMB’s response would be ‘a fair critique.’”
An early draft of the Department of Energy’s “Energy Water Challenges” report warned of increasing competition between the energy industry and other sectors, but this language was cut from later versions. Input about water use and the energy industry from stakeholders nationwide was dropped. The problems highlighted in the report drafts have only intensified drilling has increased more recently.
The 2005 Energy Policy Act required the Department of Energy to provide Congress with a report on the connection between supply and demand for water and the energy industry, and to offer “recommendations for future actions.” It would be the first major federal effort in three decades to assess the nation’s current and expected water supply.
This first half of the report, which described how water and energy were being used at the time, was submitted to Congress in January 2007. The second half, however, which deals with future projected water supply issues, has hit a series of internal roadblocks. Its first draft was finished in 2007, but it was sent back to be re-written and the head author removed from the project. A 2011 draft still has yet to be revised or officially released, and those familiar with the process say that it is presently undergoing review by White House staff.
These delays have water planners and community advocates wondering what happened. “The short answer is that despite a $2 million investment by the public, the Department of Energy has failed to produce an Energy and Water Roadmap,” the Civil Society Institute wrote.
Water Shortages Coming
Early drafts of the DOE report show that there are growing serious concerns about water availability in the U.S. “Groundwater, though, is generally declining, with falling groundwater levels and historically low water levels in storage reservoirs,” the 2011 report, the most recent draft of the report available, states.
“The most easily accessible groundwater has already been tapped; accessing deeper groundwater requires more expensive wells and increased pumping costs,” it adds.
The 2007 draft of the report acknowledged these issues and predicted that these shortages could have repercussions for the nation’s energy sector.
“As future societal demands for both energy and water continue to increase,” it said, “there will be increasing competition for limited fresh-water supplies for the domestic, agricultural, industrial, and environmental sectors. This increased competition for water could negatively impact future energy development.”
The 2007 draft repeatedly emphasized the need for research to improve water efficiency and to develop ways that the energy industry can get by using less fresh water.
In the 2011 draft, the tone of urgency has largely been removed. It asserts that technology can provide solutions to the problems emerging, describing the potential solutions that as-yet-undeveloped technologies could theoretically provide. It also says that the challenges identified are “surmountable”. Mention of the need for further research has been scrubbed. More
_______________________________________
I must admit that I find the fact that this report was withheld from publication rather suspicious. As mentioned above 'as the drilling industry drew millions of gallons of water per well in Arkansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, residents in these states struggled with severe droughts and some farmers opted to sell their water to the oil and gas industry rather than try to compete with them for limited resources', one has to question possible undue influence by the energy industry. Editor
