County considers federal study for fracking impact

TONOPAH — A possible $410,000 study of groundwater in Big Smoky Valley, which is the the possible site of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract the oil, is being considered by the Nye County Water District Board.

Jena Huntington of the U.S. Geological Survey said her agency could fund half of the study, establishing a baseline of the hydrology in a study expected to last three years. The study would evaluate water levels, determine gradients and groundwater flow directions to better understand the hydrogeologic setting of Big Smoky Valley. It would be done in two phases, before fracking and after fracking.

Nye County would have to fund the remaining half of the study.

Nye County Water District General Manager Darrell Lacy suggested the county could require oil and gas companies to obtain special use permits, similar to what the county requires for medical marijuana establishments, to raise money for the water studies. The special use permit could also require oil companies to do a minimum of water sampling and water chemistry sampling, he said.

Fracking is a method of injecting water, sand and chemicals into rock formations containing oil or gas under high pressure, which creates fractures in the rock allowing the oil or gas to flow to the well. Huntington said 99 percent of the material injected is water and sand, 1 percent is chemicals that have to be listed according to Nevada regulations.

In July, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management held an auction for 102 parcels for oil and gas leases totaling over 174,000 acres in Big Smoky Valley in northern Nye County 40 miles up from Tonopah. Thirty-six parcels were sold totaling about 49,000 acres. Parcels were sold that were adjacent to irrigated agricultural areas, Huntington said.

Particularly in the northern area, Huntington said, “there’s several homes established in that area and quite literally these folks have the potential for having some fracking happening in their back yards.”

The Nevada Division of Minerals recently approved regulations on fracking that require an intermediate casing through the depth of the well so there are two well casings between the fracking and the outlying aquifers, Huntington said. The oil companies are also required to ensure the integrity of well casings through pressure testing to make sure they can withstand the high pressures. Water monitoring is also required of the shallow aquifer citizens use for irrigation and stock water, with four wells required within a one-mile radius of the fracking.

“The catch here is to the best of my knowledge, if there are not four wells within that one mile radius, the energy company is not required to sample anything,” Huntington said.

The Chainman Shale formation in that area, which energy companies are targeting, is about 4,900 feet below ground, which would be very deep wells, she said.

According to Huntington, the Nevada Division of Minerals thinks the requirements are adequate to safeguard water sources of the area.

“(They feel) by strengthening the regulations on the integrity of the casing and the bore hole, they’re preventing any problems from happening,” Huntington said. “We’re coming from the perspective if should by accident something happen it would be very prudent to know, to have the background information, so it is very easy to say this is what our conditions were before you guys came in and look at what we have now.”

Water Board member Greg Dann thought the oil companies should pay for studies, not the financially strapped county.

Nye County Geoscience Manager Levi Kryder said the geological study would be doing work the water district has already suggested, studying water levels in northern Nye County.

“I’m looking at the numbers here for three years and I’m seeing an undue hardship put on the citizens of Nye County,” Dann said. “That’s a huge amount of money considering what our budget is and it just bothers me to no end especially when you’re dealing with someone that owns oil and gas, the numbers are staggering on somebody that owns oil and gas.”

Board member Michael Lach asked about spending $10,000 instead to lobby legislators in Carson City to make sure adequate regulations are put in place. Huntington said the Nevada Division of Minerals already spent a lot of time revising the regulations. Lacy told Lach Nye County could impose stricter regulations than the state.

Water board member Jay Dixon, a hydrologist for Round Mountain Gold Company, said from a well development perspective he thinks Nevada has some of the best regulations on fracking in the country.

“It’s a fine line. If we’re gong to create an additional burden when there’s not additional information about investment by these companies you might drive them off,” Dixon said.

By beginning the studies now, Lacy said the county won’t have to tell oil companies they have to wait for a three-year science program before drilling.

Dixon said he’s not aware of a known oil deposit in Big Smoky Valley.

“That doesn’t mean they don’t exist, it just means not that I’m aware of,” he said.

Huntington said there’s interest in the Chainman Shale formation which spreads across central and eastern Nevada, but thins out as it goes farther west.

Water board member James Eason, the Tonopah town manager, said there’s also oil exploration in Ralston Valley, Ione Valley and Railroad Valley. Lacy said the Big Smoky Valley study would only be the starting point.

“If we got a program in place where we got special use permits as a way for us to get funding from the oil companies we would try to expand this anywhere we’ve got drilling going on, we would try to look at a broad scientific basis,” Lacy said.

The special use permits might require oil companies to share data logs from their wells, Huntington said.

Lach said the county may be putting the cart before the horse. Huntington said the oil companies have up to 10 years to develop their leases.

“We don’t know if anybody is going to do anything. We can go ahead and spend $410,000 and nobody is going to do anything,” Lach said. “What did we gain other than we got good water science?”