Concerns about fracking
and the General Plan
In the Sunday, Nov. 24, newspaper, reporter Michael Brestovansky quoted me on a very important subject for the draft General Plan — hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) — a subterranean concern which I mentioned in my testimony.
In 2013, I wrote the bill on fracking which is still exists in the Hawaii County Code as Article 21, Section 14-120 through 14-127.
Fracking can be used to obtain natural gas, oil, minerals, water and geothermal heat to produce electricity. I believe that the designers of the draft General Plan have overlooked subterranean issues almost completely, especially fracking.
The U.S. Geological Survey monitors the environmental impact of fracking across the country, from potential earthquakes to degraded groundwater quality, and from its usgs.gov web site it explains: Fracking “typically involves injecting water, sand and chemicals under high pressure into a bedrock formation via a wellbore to create fractures. … This process is intended to create new fractures in the rock as well increase the size, extent and connectivity of existing fractures in order to extract trapped oil and gas” and “opponents of fracking argue that these are outweighed by the environmental impacts, which include groundwater and surface water contamination, noise and air pollution, the triggering of earthquakes, and the resulting hazards to public health and the environment.”
Two more issues occur from triggering fracking earthquakes: (1) breaking the asphalt on airplane runways, and (2) possibly cracking the wall of an aquifer.
In Hawaii County, we relay on catchment of rainwater and our aquifers for drinking water. Cracking an aquifer could cause the previously retained water to pour into the ocean and eliminate that aquifer from providing drinking water. It can also contaminate our drinking water with toxic chemicals.
The county does not have desalinization plants or equipment here which would take months, if not years, to obtain and install at great expense and time. Also, to be fair, volcano-caused earthquakes can also cause problems to the aquifers.
Again from the usgs.com pages: “Increases in seismic activity following hydraulic fracturing along dormant or previously unknown faults are sometimes caused by the deep-injection disposal of hydraulic fracturing flowback (a byproduct of hydraulically fractured wells), and produced formation brine (a byproduct of both fractured and nonfractured oil and gas wells). For these reasons, hydraulic fracturing is under international scrutiny, restricted in some countries, and banned altogether in others.”
Do we have faults in our island’s geology? Yes. Do we also have tremors and earthquakes of multiple magnitudes from our volcanoes? Yes. Do we need more earthquakes from fracking? No.
While I do not believe that I mentioned the purity of our drinking water if contaminated by fracking or its byproducts, I am glad that Michael Brestovansky did.
Mr. Brestovansky did correctly quote me “that the new General Plan has too much emphasis on surface-level things, (which I stated were important and should be in the plan) while neglecting subterranean factors on the island. She (Ford) said the plan needs to better address how to manage the island’s aquifers and floodplains (which also flow underground), while restoring the county’s ‘terrible’ wastewater treatment facilities.” “Ford added that the plan does not include any language about fracking … .”
Please read the USGS website on hydraulic fracturing and attend in person or by video the next meetings about the draft General Plan. Please support adding sections on all subterranean issues such as fracking, sewers and underground rivers of which we have many, etc.
As for the authors of the new draft General Plan, fix these serious problems in the plan. For the incoming County Council members, make sure they do fix these omissions in the new General Plan.
Brenda Ford
Former County Council member,
Captain Cook
