Poor Economics, Poor Stewardship: The Christian Case Against Hydrofracking

The rally promised to be a humdinger.

They came from miles around – mainly because it was a Saturday and one can only watch so much golf. They came waving their totems of officially-tolerated resistance: the Stars and Stripes, the Gadsden Flag, and George W. Bush ‘MISS ME YET?’ posters. They were of all shapes and sizes: short ones, tall ones, skinny ones, fat ones. Admittedly, there was a preponderance of fat ones, but let’s not get sidetracked. They were overwhelmingly white, but most of them admired Dr. Ben Carson. They supported freedom and democracy, and figured that made them good Christians. Their heads were buried in an undulating sea of straw Stetson knockoffs, which was odd given that this rally was taking place in an unnamed town in upstate New York. In short, they were the modern yeomanry, and they were up in what passes for arms today.

1:37 PM. Their hoagies consumed, their iPhones updating them on box scores, their posteriors steadfastly planted in lawn chairs and motorized scooters, the army began its mantra, calculated to strike fear in the hearts of liberals and secularists everywhere:

“FRACK! FRACK! FRACK ATTACK!! GET THIS COUNTRY BACK ON TRACK!!!”

The descendants of William Wallace voiced their discontent for nearly half an hour, then their gout started acting up again, so they went home. On the following Monday, Mark Levin gave them twenty seconds of favorable coverage on his radio show. Charles and David Koch heard this broadcast, and saw that it was Good.

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In a previous article, I touched on the lamentable tendency of Christians to embrace the tenets of godless, raceless, classless capitalism. Not enough Christians agreed with me, apparently, because they are among the most eager promoters of one of the most insidious business practices operating today: hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’.

As can be expected, precious little hard data finds its way into their arguments. Emotional pap seems to drive them onward on this issue, just as it does on every other issue on which they voice their learned opinions. Perhaps this is somewhat understandable if they live in an economically depressed area currently undergoing a renaissance because of fracking activity. It’s still a very short-sighted way of defining ‘prosperity’, though. Is the process sustainable? Who cares?? Jobs, jobs, jobs!

These proponents, as per usual, also do not take into account precisely who is in favor of fracking. It should come as no surprise to anyone that just about every single high-profile Republican is on the ‘drill, baby, drill’ bandwagon. Do conservative Christians ever stop to wonder, though, why such high-profile Democrats as Andrew Cuomo, Charles Schumer, and even Barack Obama are also enthusiasts? No, of course they don’t. Glenn Beck said the Tides Foundation opposes fracking once, so it must be beneficial. By that same reasoning, because Michael Bloomberg banned large-size soft drinks from NYC, considering Dr. Pepper as one of the four food groups is the key to health.

In accordance with this trend, the Christian arguments made in favor of fracking often take on a distinctly social-gospel tone. Consider, for example, this glowing accolade from the pan-globalist periodical Christianity Today:

Fracking—and the work of oil and gas workers more broadly—has had positive global impacts as well. Electricity and other first-world normalcies—computers, cell phones, X-ray machines, bulldozers—have become more affordable. As a result, medical manufacturing facilities have been built in Vietnam, and money transfer kiosks have popped up in every corner of the world. Doctors can conduct surgeries after dark. Children can read into the night. Pastors in remote areas can access top-shelf theological training. Billions of people in Africa and Asia are now connected to the global economic grid, lifting hundreds of millions out of extreme poverty.¹

This article is filled with hyperlinks to such supportive sources as the IEA, USA Today, and The Economist – hardly pillars of the Reformation, or even of conservatism. Yet Tea Partiers seem willing to put aside their suspicions of the mainstream media whenever this particular bandwagon crosses their line of myopic vision. Gary North reposted this article on his ‘Tea Party Economist’ blog, despite its being nothing more than a brief blurb of industry agitprop. When your statistics on the economic benefits of fracking come directly from Chevron’s website, you know something is amiss.

A major part of the problem is that people are still rather fuzzy as to what precisely hydrofracking is. Hence, any criticism levelled against it is looked upon as a criticism against oil or even energy itself. Not so. Let us look into what the process consists of before we begin to delve into its multitude of follies.

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Hydraulic fracturing is the process of extracting oil and/or natural gas from geological formations that cannot be easily accessed through conventional drilling. It begins with drilling a vertical hole down to the desired depth, followed by directionally drilling a horizontal hole through the desired formation. Pipe is threaded through this wellbore, and a mixture of chemicals, water, and sand is pumped through the pipe and highly pressurized at various stress points. This results in these stress points fracturing along a predetermined seam – very similar to a crack emanating from a chip in a windshield. The pore space has now been opened and will remain open with the help of the sand of the mixture. This allows previously trapped pockets of oil and gas to be extracted after the frack mixture has been removed from the pipe.

The technology is not new. It has been present in the oilpatch since the 1940s. However, due to its prohibitive cost, it has only become an economically viable method of extraction within the last decade or so, as never-ending wars have combined with speculative manipulation to push oil prices past $100 a barrel on a regular basis. Fracking for natural gas has also become viable as coal plants throughout the U.S. shut down and megaprojects, such as the oilsands extraction of northern Alberta, require consistent pools of gas to remain operative.

Eager to promulgate the myth that the U.S. is a going concern, governments and the energy sector alike have extolled the benefits of this ‘new’ process to the nether regions – particularly as offshore drilling has become politically cancerous after the BP Gulf of Mexico spill. And, on the surface of it, it can be tough arguing with results. Formerly moribund states like North Dakota and Pennsylvania are thriving due to frack plays. The practice allowed the U.S. to become a net exporter of oil products for the first time in over sixty years in 2012. And, after all, jobs are jobs, and many of our own volk who otherwise wouldn’t have employment now do so thanks to fracking. So what if it’s not an ideal economic model? Broken eggs make an omelet, you know!

Here’s the problem, though: you only get to make one omelet. And once that’s gone, you’re left with eggshells. Good luck trying to subsist on those. For the simple fact of the matter is: fracking is little more than a gigantic Ponzi scheme. These are not my words. In 2011, the New York Times wrote a story concerning dozens of leaked emails in which industry geologists and executives described the fracking mania in precisely those terms. Representatives from ConocoPhillips, Chesapeake, Schlumberger, and other companies candidly express their grave doubts about the long-term validity of hydrofracking and, when expressing any optimism at all about the process, recommend making a quick buck and then getting out of Dodge for good.² These aren’t green-haired eco-anarchists we’re talking about, but professionals on the ground and in the middle of the fray. And they know whereof they speak.

The returns from fracked wells start off exceptionally lucrative, as long-trapped oil and gas deposits begin to free flow. This is illusory, though, as within a relatively short period of time these wells lose pressure, and the flow noticeably slows or ceases altogether. Not to worry, though – these wells can be re-pressurized via one or two new fracks in the same area, and production will resume…until these wells also lose pressure. Not to worry, though – a few more fracks do the trick…until they, too, lose pressure. Not to worry, though…you get the idea. A recent story in the Telegraph explains the situation and its grim aftermath:

If a huge number of wells come on stream in a short time, you get a lot of initial production. This is exactly what has happened in the US.

The key word here, though, is “initial”. The big snag with shale wells is that output falls away very quickly indeed after production begins. Compared with “normal” oil and gas wells, where output typically decreases by 7pc-10pc annually, rates of decline for shale wells are dramatically worse. It is by no means unusual for production from each well to fall by 60pc or more in the first 12 months of operations alone.

Faced with such rates of decline, the only way to keep production rates up (and to keep investors on side) is to drill yet more wells. This puts operators on a “drilling treadmill”, which should worry local residents just as much as investors. Net cash flow from US shale has been negative year after year, and some of the industry’s biggest names have already walked away.

The seemingly inevitable outcome for the US shale industry is that, once investors wise up, and once the drilling sweet spots have been used, production will slump, probably peaking in 2017-18 and falling precipitously after that. The US is already littered with wells that have been abandoned, often without the site being cleaned up.³

In other words, fracking is being managed like every other aspect of the oil industry since its inception – as a gigantic mining operation, one that is to be ravished as quickly as possible and then abruptly abandoned once the milk and honey have all been consumed. How is this in accordance with biblical stewardship? How does an orgy of boom followed by an inevitable famine of bust not give credence to Isaiah 28:4: ‘And the glorious beauty, which is on the head of the fat valley, shall be a fading flower, and as the hasty fruit before the summer; which when he that looketh upon it seeth, while it is yet in his hand he eateth it up’? How little inclined our people are to learn anything from history.

Some (such as the author of this article) will argue that this is a problem that will be resolved once more accurate geological mapping is developed. Their faith in the inherent wisdom of professions is touching, but grotesquely misguided. Even if this were to happen, though, it still wouldn’t stem an even more dire wastage of a precious commodity: water.

The amount of water required to pressurize fracked wells is immense – anywhere between one to five million gallons for less than a week’s work.⁴ Such volumes are necessitated by the fact that these wells extend miles below the surface. In areas where conventional oil plays tapered off years ago, the wells go even deeper, and even more water is required. For example, Tarrant County in northeastern Texas (home to Fort Worth) went through 2.9 billion gallons of water in one year, necessitating their looking towards Oklahoma for water relief.⁵ Water for these projects is primarily supplied through surface sources such as rivers and lakes, although as the scale of frack projects has increased, companies have increasingly been tapping groundwater sources via underground reservoirs. This can have dire consequences, especially in drought-prone agricultural regions in the Midwest and West – and almost half of fracked wells drilled in the U.S. since 2011 have been in these regions.⁶ When agrarianism meets the Industrial Revolution, we must expect the latter to win every time, and these cases are no exceptions. During an excess water auction held by the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District in 2012, two oil-service companies were allowed to bid for the first time in the organization’s history.⁷ Aren’t precedents wonderful? While the price of this water averaged $28 per acre-foot, the cost of excess water from the municipal source in Aurora skyrocketed to $1500 per acre-foot.⁸ And as the cheaper water of the rivers of Colorado is predictably exhausted, this new price will become the standard rate for farmers and urban homeowners alike.

It is no hyperbole to state that agrarianism and hydrofracking are mutually incompatible. A case in point to consider is the Ogallala Aquifer. Wikipedia describes this Midwestern reservoir as being one of the world’s largest aquifers, extending across eight states and supplying the water supply of 82% of the area’s residents. Already significantly depleted by the region’s agricultural irrigation, the reservoir is further threatened by the region’s numerous frack plays – not so much because it itself is supplying frack water but because there is a real danger of toxic effluent from fracked wells permeating the basin and contaminating the entire supply. One Kansas newspaper (which also pointed out that the aquifer made ‘rural life possible in western Kansas’) quoted the head of that state’s Sierra Club branch as saying that mineral rights acquisitions were being gobbled up in northwestern Kansas at an alarming rate due to the shale oil prevalent there.⁹ This same spokesman expressed particular concern over ‘[the] introduction of radioactive minerals in the slurry of fluid to help measure fractures around well bores.’¹⁰ After a defense of the practice from an industry spokesman, the article ends with the following passage:

Don Teske, who represents the Kansas Farmers Union, said he wasn’t sufficiently versed on fracking to determine the threat. He remains uneasy with oil-and-gas industry assurances no harm would come to the Ogallala.

“I’m not saying it isn’t safe,” Teske said. “Pardon me if I just don’t take them at their word.”¹¹

As well he shouldn’t. For the fact remains that hydrofracking is especially prone to contaminating all local water sources, not just gigantic reservoirs. A multitude of hack government-sanctioned studies such as this one claim otherwise, yet all have met with refutations. Despite industry agitprop to the contrary, a considerable portion of a frack mixture contains contaminants toxic to animals and humans alike. Even Popular Mechanics, a publication that can be counted on to toe the official line on just about any issue, admits that up to a third of frack chemicals remain a mystery.  This piece from Business Insider is considerably more candid, listing among frack additives methanol, benzene, lead, sulfuric acid, and formaldehyde. Cancer milkshake, anyone?

Proponents will claim that fracking companies disclose the chemical components of their mixtures on the FracFocus chemical disclosure registry. However, the integrity of this database has repeatedly been called into question as it is maintained and updated by the industry itself. A 2013 Harvard Law School report on the registry sums up its shortcomings:

 In its current form, FracFocus is not an acceptable regulatory compliance method for chemical disclosures. The registry’s shortcomings – and opportunities for improvement – fall into three categories:

(1) Timing of Disclosures. State laws attach penalties to a company’s late submittal of, or failure to submit, chemical disclosures. However, FracFocus does not notify a state when it receives a disclosure from a company operating in that state. Nor can most states readily determine when a disclosure is made. As a result, states cannot enforce timely disclosure requirements.

(2) Substance of Disclosures. FracFocus creates obstacles to compliance for reporting companies. For example, by not providing state-specific forms, FracFocus leaves companies to figure out how to account for state disclosure requirements not covered by the FracFocus form. FracFocus staff does not review submissions, and states usually do not receive the form; factors that may encourage some companies to under-value careful reporting. Meanwhile, no state sets minimum reporting standards for FracFocus. In fact, were FracFocus to disappear entirely, most states using the registry would have no backup disclosure methods readily identified and available to them.

(3) Nondisclosures. Trade secret protection is critical in order to reward development of unique products in the marketplace. However, three characteristics of a robust trade secret regime prevent overly broad demands for this protection: substantiation by the company, verification by a government agency, and opportunity for public challenge. FracFocus has none of these characteristics; operators have sole discretion to determine when to assert trade secrets. As a result, inconsistent trade secret assertions are made throughout the registry.¹²

The third point brings up another salient problem: the specific chemical makeups of frack mixtures are often company secrets, subject to non-disclosure agreements among engineers and executives alike. Are these same companies going to be thorough in releasing their chemical data to a registry for all other producers to see? Not bloody likely.

Thus, despite the fact that the majority of a frack mixture is composed of water and sand, the danger of chemical migration along a fissure fractured in permeable rock and into a nearby reservoir or water well remains a legitimate concern. Oil companies pooh-pooh these concerns and point out that this scenario is still highly theoretical. To prove their point, then, the solution seems obvious: add a non-toxic tracer chemical to the frack mix that would show up wherever any seepage occurs. The cost of such a chemical would be negligible and the value of the goodwill this gesture would generate would be invaluable. Instead, the industry as a whole has resisted this measure ferociously every time a state legislature has proposed it. Granted, government coercion is never a desirable way to implement anything. Still, if fracking companies were more transparent in their operations, then perhaps such measures would not be necessary in the first place.

The web of secrecy that surrounds the entire fracking process reeks of industrial Gnosticism. No Christian worth his salt believes anything good comes from theological Gnosticism, so why do so many shrug their shoulders at the former? The love of money truly is the root of all evil.

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Hydrofracking, thus, can be summarized economically as too much sacrificed for too little gain. Equally as daunting for the kinist, though, is the practice’s societal impact. This aspect could take up an entire piece on its own, yet a brief overview here should suffice.

The most obvious (and the most publicized) side effect of fracking has been the blatant disregard shown for the property rights of landowners unfortunate enough to have signed a frack lease with a company – or of landowners in the vicinity of such a lease, for that matter. This was demonstrated most famously in the 2010 documentary Gasland, which featured a scene in which tap water saturated with methane from a nearby gas well was lit on fire. Such spectacular imagery, however, should not blind us to the more mundane but equally onerous frack practices that, if they don’t directly destroy property, at the very least serve to drive property values down. Describing the situation in one small New York community plagued by fracking, an online article had this to say on the subject:

Toxic, radioactive frack wastewater, stored in open pools, pollutes the air and groundwater, and it overwhelms sewage treatment plants. Tank trucks that transport the millions of gallons of freshwater needed for fracking clog and ruin scenic country roads. Fracking industrialization hurts rural economies dependent on tourism. . . .

Thirty-nine states allow “private eminent domain,” forcing landowners to surrender drilling rights to corporations. This legal outrage, known as “forced pooling” compels landowners who hold out against a fracking company to join in gas-leasing agreements with willing neighbors. . . .

Towns pass ordinances to keep dogs on leashes to prevent them from defecating in your front yard. It is no different – and more imperative – to require the leashing of aggressive corporations who pose a greater threat to private property, public health, local economies, and our American way of life.¹³

In the modern U.S. of A. we don’t force anyone to join a union anymore. That’s socialistic. We just coerce farmers into signing leases they don’t want to. That’s not socialistic. The American way of life is glorious, isn’t it?

While coercion is occurring above, theft is occurring below. The very nature of horizontal directional drilling is ideal for siphoning off oil and gas pockets to which a company has not secured the mineral rights. Such outrages are nothing new to the oil industry.  For example, according to Wikipedia:

In the middle of the twentieth century, the East Texas Oil Field was the center of a slant-hole scandal. Some unscrupulous operators had drilled slanted holes from across their lease lines into the productive portions of the Woodbine formation. Inspectors found 380 deviated wells and shut them down, with the assistance of the Texas Rangers. An estimated $100 million worth of oil was stolen over several decades from legal owners.

Given the already-mentioned Gnostic nature of the frack industry as a whole, it would be rather naïve to believe that these practices would not be carried out on an even wider scale, particularly since state and county governments would be fully complicit with these companies in order to maximize their tax revenue.

It is hardly necessary to point out how these practices are anti-Christian, yet it is worth remembering two quotes from R.L. Dabney that are relevant to fracking companies who engage in such duplicitous practices: “Advantage is not to be taken of the ignorance of buyers or sellers”¹⁴ and “all misrepresentations as to defects of the commodity bought or sold, adulteration and deceptions, whether actual or implied are thefts.”¹⁵

Another societal factor of grave concern to kinists is the radical demographic changes that hydrofracking inevitably brings to a region. Whenever an economic boom occurs in an area, the dregs from economically depressed regions will flock there in droves, with cultural anarchy being the inevitable result. There’s a reason no one wants to spend their retirement in these places. Multiethnic migrants scrabble with each other for rental space; and during weekend benders, areas that were once predominantly white and agrarian today resemble campgrounds taken over by the entire population of East St. Louis. No doubt the Heritage Foundation would think this delightful, but then their directors don’t have to live in these ravaged regions.

To illustrate an example of this, let’s take a look at two states that are white enclaves – Idaho, which is not currently experiencing a frack boom, and North Dakota, which is, because of oil deposits in the Bakken shale formation. How did their racial demographics change between 2000 and 2010 – the years that ushered in the latter state’s oil boom?¹⁶

Prior to 2000, both states’ white percentage of population were almost equal – 94.4% for Idaho and 94.6% for North Dakota. By 2000, North Dakota had taken a considerable lead over Idaho – 92.4% of its citizens were white, as opposed to 90.1% for Idaho. The great Hispanic push ever northward and westward, which began in earnest in the 1990s, can probably account for the latter statistic.

While North Dakota’s white percentage was still greater in 2010, the gap had narrowed considerably. It stood at 90% compared to Idaho’s 89.1%. The rate of increase of the two states’ ethnic percentages tells the rest of the story. North Dakota’s black population increased 0.6% compared with Idaho’s 0.2% over those ten years. Its Asian population increased 0.4% compared with Idaho’s 0.3%. Its American Indian population increased 0.5% while Idaho’s stayed the same – the influx of migrants from South Dakota’s reservations has been considerable. Although Idaho’s total Hispanic population of 2010 registered a sobering 11.2% of the population, North Dakota managed a very respectable 2% of its population, rendering Hispanics the seventh largest ethnic group in the state as of 2009.

In looking at these figures, two things must also be borne in mind:

1.)    Because these statistics originate from the beginning of the frack boom and not from its peak year of 2012, it’s safe to say that these demographics have shifted further into a multicultural matrix since 2010, and

2.)    These figures are taken from data compiled by the U.S. Census Bureau. Migrant workers are not exactly renowned for participating in censuses, and blacks and Hispanics are even less renowned for doing so. Hence, these numbers probably only represent rough estimates at best.

Another thing to remember: contrary to what the pathologically optimistic like David Bahnsen will tell you, no boom lasts forever – particularly a phony one like fracking. When the bubble finally bursts, what happens to all those transplants? After blowing their earnings on cocaine and prostitutes, are these folks going to have two nickels to rub together in order to get back to the hood? Fat chance. This is also assuming the black transplants, in particular, came up there to work in the first place and not just to be ‘where the action is’, as is their wont. Disgruntled unemployed blacks and Mexicans in farming country razed barren by industrial rape do not make for a secure community for the white families who actually have been there for the long haul.

A more general note of objection: why, as opponents of the god-state, would we give our blessing to a practice that enriches the government-corporate complex we’ve come to know and loathe, particularly when that practice robs our own families of their birthright? Grandiose claims that fracking will lead to permanent American energy independence are blatted by geologically ignorant politicians, CEOs, professors, and pastors as a Gregorian chant. Parasites like Joe Biden’s son get cushy executive positions with companies planning on overseas frack projects in Ukraine. And here’s a real howler: some neocons are so desperate to keep the frack bubble afloat that they even defend the practice by saying it’ll flood the world market with cheap reserves of gas, thus threatening Russia’s Gazprom and weakening Vladimir Putin! If patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, then short-term profits must at the least be second last.

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From facts such as those presented, it’s difficult to reach a conclusion other than that the economic sense behind hydrofracking is at best short-sighted and at worst thoroughly corrupt. In its flagrant disregard for God’s natural creation and His servants who occupy it and tend it (a disregard far, far worse than even conventional oil drilling ever evidenced), the practice among Christian agrarians becomes completely indefensible. How can Christian proponents of fracking overlook God’s words in Leviticus 19:9-10?

And when ye reap the harvest of your land, thou shalt not wholly reap the corners of thy field, neither shalt thou gather the gleanings of thy harvest.
And thou shalt not glean thy vineyard, neither shalt thou gather every grape of thy vineyard; thou shalt leave them for the poor and stranger: I am the LORD your God.

If a field or vineyard can be fiendishly ravished, why cannot an oil field be as well? Why should every last drop of a precious commodity like oil be ferreted out of the ground to be frittered away? As for the poor, or landowner in this case, bribing them with a few lease checks now and then seems rather cold comfort when you’re condemning their property to be a toxic dump in perpetuity – and all the colder comfort for that landowner’s children.

I should point out, as a coda, that I do not begrudge Joe Sixpack taking a job in the fracking industry in order to make ends meet for his family. We all have to do what we all have to do, after all, and it sure beats working for the IRS or Joel Osteen Ministries. I would ask Joe not to look at such a position as a long-term prospect, though.

In conclusion, the proponents of hydrofracking would do well to consider these pertinent questions posed by Dabney:

What are the righteous uses of wealth? This question can only be answered under the guidance of these two principles: the Golden Rule; and, To that steward to whom much is committed, of him shall much be required. These show that the rule of self-indulgence in anything allowed by law, and for which I can honestly pay the money, will never suffice for a virtuous man’s guide. Behind the question, whether this proposed use of possessions is lawful, stands a higher question, Is it the best use? the use most highly promotive of the legitimate ends of possessions?¹⁷

The following story, though, demonstrates that neither oil companies nor the people affected by them, by and large, know of this quote or care about its existence:

BOBTOWN, Pa. — Critics are raging after an energy giant offered pizza coupons to a community near a natural gas well that exploded last month, killing a worker.

News stories, TV shows and blogs — many sarcastic or outright scornful — spread the word far and wide. “Shame on you,” one person wrote about the offer by Chevron Corp. “How insulting!” said another. Comedy Central’s satirical “The Colbert Report” skewered it.

But the 750 or so residents of the hamlet of Bobtown? Not one has signed an online petition demanding an apology for the pizza offer. In fact, during a recent visit, The Associated Press found the talk of the town is more the furious response by outsiders.

“We feel it was something outside groups generated,” said Pete Novak, a co-director of the Polish American Club, a local gathering spot. None of the patrons has voiced outrage, he said, and residents laughed about how people who have never set foot in Bobtown claim to speak for its citizens.

Several people noted that Chevron’s pizza offer was made to apologize for traffic after the fire, not to downplay the loss of life.

“I thought it was pretty decent of them,” said Ray Elli, 54, who noted that the fire was about a mile outside town, on a ridge, and that people in town didn’t feel threatened.

Bill Sowden, co-owner of Bobtown Pizza, the area’s only restaurant, says 12 people have redeemed the coupons distributed by Chevron. The whole issue, he said, was blown out of proportion.

“We’re just a food place,” he said.¹⁸

There it is. Your tummy is full of a nice warm pizza. Now go to sleep blessing America while your family’s livelihood is being stolen from right underneath your nose.

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