Exactly. Which is why industry pushes for exemptions and lack of oversight were way off-base. You make my point.
Not in North Dakota I don't. There is no lack of oversight here.
That wasn't the extent of their push. They made a big push in Dimock, PA, too.
Which also failed to show that fraccing contaminated any groundwater.
I know of at least one gas company doing the same. (They did note an increase in methane in some local wells; others, it was just a confirmation bias.)
Again, I've highlighted your words that highlight the issue.
If there is a problem in your area with either regulation or oversight, that is a local government problem. The NDIC does very well at enforcing the regulations, and will prosecute companies who fail to do so.
You know as well as I do that corners were cut,
I have no knowledge of any oil company cutting any corners on established regulations or safety practices. Without firsthand knowledge of such, I could not attest to 'corners being cut'. If you know of such, please provide some documentation. We're sticklers about doing things right, here, because we live here. For starters, as a professional Geologist, it would be my duty to report any cut corners. I have long said that I will gladly work in the industry as long as things are done right. It has been over 35 years now, and to my knowledge, they have been done correctly. This is an agricultural state, too, and the land passed on to our progeny will be what we make of it--polluting it is not part of that plan.
...and industry was not wholly successful at self-regulation.
The North Dakota Industrial Commission (Oil and Gas Division) is in charge of regulating the industry here, not the oil companies. The oil is here, there is money to be made, but if you want to come here from somewhere else and do that, you're going to go by our rules. Otherwise, don't bother. Someone else will do so and comply. The rules aren't ridiculous, the regulators worked in the industry, too, and have enough knowledge of what is important to make sure that is covered without imposing ridiculous nonsense, but the goal of it all is that when that well site is reclaimed, as eventually it will be, the land will still be suitable for raising families, livestock, and growing crops.
At least one outfit has admitted to using diesel fuel even after promising to stop the practice.
Not here, nor in violation of any regulation.
Properly done, fracking isn't very risky to groundwater.
Properly done the risk is zero.
But as you point out, there are still risks from surface spills and improper cement/casing jobs.
The latter can be mitigated by running casing bond logs, and the deficiencies, if present, are obvious. Those can be remedied with a 'squeeze job', and re-logged to ensure they are corrected. If the State doesn't approve the casing integrity, the oil company is free to fix it, but without that approval, there will be no frac job.
Add to that that the first couple of thousand feet are also behind surface casing, run, cemented, and also bond logged, to protect the aquifers from contamination by drilling fluid while the well is being drilled. "Surface hole" is drilled using fresh water and native materials, with the possible addition of bentonite or other clays to reduce fluid losses and seepage. From spud to cementing casing seldom takes 48 hours.
The casing run after a well gets into the target zone is intermediate casing, (run inside the surface casing), and the production liner is yet a third string, which extends from just above the base of the intermediate casing in the lateral to TD (total depth). All of those would have to be compromised to contaminate groundwater. Highly unlikely.
And if all operations were perfect, Macondo wouldn't have had a problem and few people would know of Deepwater Horizon.
If the people watching the pressure build, the well start flowing more fluid than was being pumped to displace the marine riser, had called that to the attention of the right people, and they had listened (I'm not sure where the problem was, there, but the onshore telemetry clearly showed the failure to address the situation in a timely fashion) then there is a good chance that the well and the rig and the eleven lives lost would have all been saved. Somewhere on that rig, there was a serious and fundamental f**k up. I have been on land rigs where there were 'kicks' that were a little touch and go after encountering overpressured zones while drilling, but we always contained the problem. Paying attention goes a long way toward that.
However, that was a blowout, and not a fraccing problem. That well had only been drilled, and was not being placed into production. Pressures there which had been controlled during drilling became a problem when the 5000 ft. of marine riser had the more dense drilling fluid displaced with much lighter seawater, reducing the hydrostatic pressure on the formation and allowing uncontrolled production of formation fluid (oil and gas). Failure to control that fluid production by the timely addition of 'kill mud' (heavy drilling fluid designed to exert pressure on the formation and stop fluid production) or mechanical means (BOPs) permitted the uncontrolled release of oil and gas (a blowout), and the ensuing explosion, fire, and disaster.
I will say there was a problem with the casing/cement job, from what I have been able to ascertain, otherwise the formation would not have been able to produce into the wellbore. The same fundamentals apply. When the well is flowing and it isn't supposed to, you have a problem.
That is why prudence is necessary, and industry has to be told to shut up about gummy bears and just do things right. Fortunately, they seem to have gotten the message, mostly, as regulators have stood their ground.
No one ever said there shouldn't be rules, nor that those rules, based on safe practices, should not be enforced. We have that here, in ND. Over 10,000 wells, no instances of groundwater contamination except from a couple of surface spills, and those were reported and remediated--no worse than wrecking a truckload of salt water and cleaning that up. When the boom in horizontal drilling and fraccing started in the Bakken here, the regs were already in place to deal with this (our oil industry here only goes back to the 1950s).
I find it hard to believe that PA, with its rich history from Drake's well on, doesn't have appropriate regulations and agencies in place to handle this, or that West Virginia, where gas wells have been drilled since well before I was a Geology undergrad in Virginia in the '70s, doesn't have the regulations, agencies, etc. to oversee the industry. If that is the case, or was the case, it is good that it has been fixed, and a serious failure on the part of state government if it hasn't.
The problem with Federal Regulation (especially a rabidly anti-industry agency like the EPA) writing some set of blanket regulations for the country is that the geology, geological problems, and engineering solutions vary from geological province to province. Those rules would likely make as much sense as imposing California building codes for earth quake proof construction on North Dakota (an area of incredibly low seismicity).
The Feds need not get involved, unless there is corruption in a state regulatory agency.
Why have someone ruling on your back yard from 2000+ miles away?
Keep government local, it's easier to keep an eye on what they are up to.
