The whole natural gas question in this country is a complicated one. On one hand, we have oodles of the stuff, it’s relatively low carbon, and it would seem to be a sensible pillar of our country’s energy future. On the other hand, extracting it from Mother Earth does nasty stuff to the water supply. How nasty? Check out this video shot in Fort Lupton, Colorado, a little town just north of Denver’s northernmost suburban sprawl.
Until a year ago, these Fort Lupton residents had run-of-the-mill, non-flammable water. But there’s some aggressive oil and gas production in the area, and now local faucets are liable to create a massive fireball if you hold a lit match near them. It’s hardly an isolated incident either, as communities across the west from Texas to Montana are already being affected in disturbing ways. So apparently will be communities in the eastern US sitting atop the massive Marcellus Shale formation which stretches from upstate New York down to West Virginia and which gas companies are just in the early stages of exploiting.
So it seems to shape up as a case of lower carbon emissions and potential energy independence vs. kitchen faucets across the country becoming flamethrowers. Um… whadda we do, boss?
The clip comes from an in-progress documentary called Water Under Attack — click through the jump to see a 16 minute video about Fort Lupton.
IN THE RED ZONE from JOSHFOX on Vimeo.
PS - Does anyone use the word “inflammable” anymore? We were tempted but seems like it’s been pretty much pushed out of use by “flammable.” Headlines are not really the place to hypercorrect, we suppose…
October 14th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
[...] New Trend: Flammable Tap Water · “Until a year ago, these Fort Lupton residents had run-of-the-mill, non-flammable water.” [...]
October 14th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
You wrote “So it seems to shape up as a case of lower carbon emissions and potential energy independence vs. kitchen faucets across the country becoming flamethrowers.” But the methane coming with the water is also a potent greenhouse gas, contributing about 21 times as much warming per unit mass as carbon dioxide. If not burned at the tap (and converted to carbon dioxide) it ultimately goes into the air. So it may be “potential energy independence” vs. flamethrowers, but it may not be helping reduce greenhouse gas emissions at all, just switching the compound. See the article on methane leaks in today’s New York Times at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/15/business/energy-environment/15degrees.html?hp
By the way, I like your blog. This is the first time I’ve seen a problem here like this.
October 14th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Ed,
Thanks — I hadn’t yet seen this story. Interesting and important stuff.
Jebediah
October 14th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
I love that the Google Ad at the bottom of the article is for someone selling Natural Gas Energy Stocks!
Long live flammable water (until the gas co. finds a way to charge us for it)!
October 14th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
The problem wells are not in the City of Fort Lupton, they are about eight miles east of the city in unincorporated Weld County, thus the residents in the video are obtaining their water through private wells they own which were drilled on their property.
They are not living in “a little town just north of Denver’s northernmost suburban sprawl” but in the country.
Fort Lupton’s city water all comes from mountain sources via the NCWCD pipelines and its residents do not have a problem with flaming water. Any bit of logical thinking would tell you that the state would not tolerate that kind of contamination in a municipal water supply.
Such a glaring inaccuracy casts doubt on the validity of the entire report, and you don’t want that, do you?
This is hardly a new problem, residents who have lived in the area say they were able to light the water from certain wells over 50 years ago.
October 14th, 2009 at 11:03 pm
USAGE Both inflammable and flammable mean ‘easily set on fire.’ The opposite is nonflammable. Where there is a danger that inflammable could be understood to mean its opposite, that is, ‘not easily set on fire,’ flammable should be used to avoid confusion. Inflammable is usually used figuratively or in nontechnical contexts ( : his inflammable temper).
October 15th, 2009 at 12:53 am
FAKE!!!
October 15th, 2009 at 1:46 am
Soooo, how many people went to go check to see if their tab water would catch on fire. I know I did…now from some reason i feel kinda stupid for doing so.
1) Make sure Dallas still has run-of-the-mill, non-flammable water. [Check]
October 15th, 2009 at 2:41 am
Why doesn’t he connect a pipe to the water and seperate the natural gas from the water. This way, he can collect natural gas for FREE!
October 15th, 2009 at 5:40 am
En algunos pueblos de Texas, el agua corriente es inflamable [ENG]…
¿Qué pasa si acercas un mechero a un chorro de agua en tu casa? Se apagará, obviamente. O eso esperas. En algunos pueblos de Texas, a lo mejor el chorro te explota en la cara, como se puede apreciar en el vídeo. ¿La razón? La perforación para ex…
October 15th, 2009 at 6:31 am
BJC, I got “Find your local Citroën dealer here”.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:05 am
[...] In Colorado, gas makes tap water flammable (with spectacular pyrotechnic video) (Infrastructurist) [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 11:06 am
Re: inflammable — it is correct, flammable is incorrect, of course, but English like all living languages evolves. Soon we will all be buying less hamburgers irregardless at the more unique drive-thru at nite under the sodium lites.
Re: carbon, etc. The inflammable contents of the tap water are probably worse greenhouse gasses than the carbon dioxide they produce when burned.
Re: energy and greenhouse gasses: Did you know that hydroelectric power can be worse for global warming than burning fossil fuels? The organic matter at the bottom of the man-made lake gets turned into methane, which is a much worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:38 am
On the bright side… cooking Ramen noodles is a lot easier with flaming water.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Not to defend this at all, but I would like to point out that similar environmentally destructive things happen when drilling for regular oil. Natural gas isn’t much worse off in this area then any other fossil fuel. Tighter regulations should be in place to clean up practices of all energy operations be it natgas, oil, or otherwise.
Of course the only real way to put an end to these sorts of problems is to switch to renewable energy and move to plug-in vehicles for transportation but that’s not going to happen over night.
Full disclosure: We have a Prius and a Civic GX-NGV.
October 15th, 2009 at 11:57 am
[...] Can you light your tap water on fire? This guy from Colorado can. CAN YOU DO THIS WITH YOUR TAP WATER? from JOSHFOX on Vimeo. The whole natural gas question in this country is a complicated one. On one hand, we have oodles of the stuff, it
October 15th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
[...] http://www.infrastructurist.com/2009/10/14/new-trend-flammable-tap-water/ [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 1:05 pm
This is bullcrap. there are millions of wells in the US and half a dozen have had this problem over the last 150 years. Your article makes it sound like this is happening everywhere. Simply not so.
Go take a hot bath and let the natural gas heat the water you use. Go get in your plastic and rubberized car. Better yet. Use your computer to defile the very substances that allow you the priveledge to even write your thoughts on the web. Hypocrite. Bet you won’t allow this post.
October 15th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Bullcrap? How about you watch some of the longer videos before you rush to conclusions.
http://waterunderattack.com/
October 15th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
[...] Infrastructuraist: New Trend—Flammable Tap Water Natural gas product can mean flammable tap water, as this amazing ten-second video shows. (tags: fire gas water pollution energy environment) [...]
October 15th, 2009 at 7:18 pm
Hm.
its a real problem, happened in PA as well as some of the other places you mentioned. In PA i believe it was due to Marcellus Shale drilling. Its funny all the folks saying that its been happening for 50 years or 150 years … as if that makes it ok.
Its also funny the person that got all righteous about the distinction between Fort Lupton and the outer rural areas near there. As if the fact that its not a municipal source of water makes it less important. As if the fact that some folks live in outer areas that aren’t so very efficiently tied into the grid system means that they don’t deserve to have water, instead of flames coming out of their kitchen sinks. People get righteous about the weirdest things, bet their tap water isn’t flammable…
Theres a lot of really nasty stuff associated with natural gas drilling, the fact that it affects our water so drastically really permeates all the other elements as well. Saying all the stuff about methane coming from the tap water and criticizing computer use is also not really the point. We live in an age of stuff, we best chill out on all the stuff, that much is sure, and all this deep shale drilling is incredibly toxic, so ‘we’ should cut that out too.
October 16th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
If you drill a water well through rock that also contains natural gas, guess what? You get water with gas in it. The stupidity here is from the water well drillers. This is related to geology, but probably not related to production of natural gas by the oil and gas industry. What is really needed here is more regulation of water well drilling, right?
October 16th, 2009 at 2:00 pm
Carbonates –
Except that the water well long predated the gas well…
Jebediah
October 16th, 2009 at 3:42 pm
[...] check out the full post on The Infrastructurist here [...]
October 16th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
[...] New Trend: Flammable Tap Water – “The whole natural gas question in this country is a complicated one. On one hand, we have oodles of the stuff, it’s relatively low carbon, and it would seem to be a sensible pillar of our country’s energy future. On the other hand, extracting it from Mother Earth does nasty stuff to the water supply. How nasty? Check out this video shot in Fort Lupton, Colorado, a little town just north of Denver’s northernmost suburban sprawl…” [...]
October 17th, 2009 at 3:05 pm
When people are already established in an area and a company comes in and drills thus contaminating the existing wells or bedrock into which wells are drilled… they are morally bound to remediate the land. What oil/gas company do you know with any morals?
October 21st, 2009 at 12:27 am
[...] HeatingOil.com: According to Infrastructurist, communities from Montana and Texas have been similarly affected by corporate drilling for natural [...]