FrackingAnalysts: arrogance, clumsiness of oil and gas industry caused fracking’s bad image

Oil and gas industry experts say arrogance, secrecy, and poor communication by the drilling industry have led to public anger over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

The Washington Post quotes  John Hofmeister, a former Shell Oil president and author of Why We Hate the Oil Companies, is calling for fracking companies to release more information to alleviate public concerns about the relationship between the drilling technology and  water contamination.

“It’s a big issue for the industry. I have called for greater transparency. That is the only way to have an honest conversation with the public,” John Hofmeister told the Post.

Terry Engelder, a geologist with Pennsylvania State University and a supporter of fracking, says the industry needs to begin to communicate more often with its critics and provide explanations of the risks and benefits of drilling.

“I would do whatever it took to try and engage these people over a period of time,” Engeleder told the Post.

Engelder added that while the risks of fracking have been blown out of proportion, the industry handled some situations poorly, making things worse.

For example, in 2009 eighteen families in Dimock, Pennsylvania complained that nearby fracking contaminated their water supply with methane gas and toxic chemicals.

State environmentalists agreed with the families and imposed large fines on the Cabot Oil & Gas Company, which was doing the drilling, and temporarily banned the company from drilling near the town. Cabot paid out the fines but denied any wrongdoing.

Engelder said the industry’s problems are the result  of lack of experience and  mistakes. In Dimock, for example, the land had many layers of rick, and fracking was such a new idea that regulators and the industry did not fully understand the problems it could create.

As a result, Engelder says, fracking techniques used in the early part of the drilling boom in the state “were just inadequate to the task” of protecting groundwater in that area, and by the time measures were taken to protect local water, it was too late.

Critics of fracking, however, are not convinced that things have gotten better and that the practice is now safer than it was.

“You can’t change the spots on a leopard,” Jim Switzer, a Dimock resident, who says drilling ruined his water, told the Post. “They would spend a billion dollars to say they weren’t responsible for something rather than spend a couple million dollars of taking care of who they screwed.”

Thomas Thompson, who complained that the heavy equipment that accompanied drilling in Rifle, Colorado, created endless dust storms which caused health problems for him and his wife, believes the government should have been more responsible in the past when it came to fracking.

Thompson fought the Encana Oil & Gas Company  in court for a decade before finally moving to Texas and settling with the company for an undisclosed amount.

Encana said that Thompson based his lawsuit on the fact that he “did not like having oil and gas activity on his property.”

“We realize that this is sometimes the case, particularly if an individual doesn’t have mineral rights and receives no economic benefit from our presence and activity,” Encana spokesman Doug Hock said in an e-mail. “Generally, we’re able to reach some sort of accommodation. In other cases, such as this one, it’s not possible.”