What We Know, What We Don’t Know, and What We Need to Know about the Tradeoffs of Oil and Gas Development in the Western US

AirWaterGas NSF Sustainability Research Network | www.airwatergas.org

Mark WilliamsUniversity of Colorado Boulder

AWG SRN

EmbeddedTech

U MichiganUC Boulder

Social-EcologicalSystems Analysis

UCB

Water QualityCSPUP

UCB

Air QualityUCB

NOAANREL

Water QuantityUCBCSU

Health EffectsCSPH

AnalyticalLaboratory

UC Boulder

Policy and

PracticesUCB

Oil and GasInfrastructure

CSM

OutreachEducatio

nUCB

UCAR

AssessmentUCB

DataManagement

UCB

Water Treatment

UCBCSM

Which compounds are of concern?

hazardous persistent

mobilehazardous

compounds that may reach

drinking water

Joe Ryan slide

What We Know Small number of compounds of

concern a few dozen of concern, not a few hundred

Very low incidence of groundwater contamination tens of thousands, a hundred thousand (?)

oil and gas wells hydraulically fractured,only tens, hundreds (?) of water wells contaminated

What We Don’t Know Unknown compounds

compounds from producing formations proprietary compounds

efforts to reduce risk (e.g., CleanStim) Contaminant properties at

high temperature and pressure up to 250C (480F), up to 10,000 psi

Flow paths probabilities of the possibilities?

What We Don’t Know Time

predictions less certain for longer time