An almost year-long environmental study by Hendrix College professors and students found that gas drilling is negatively affecting the habitat in Faulkner, Cleburne, Conway, Van Buren and White counties.
“One of the things we want to figure out with the explosion of the hydrofracturing technology across the country,” said Matthew Moran, area chair of natural sciences at Hendrix, is “what impact does that have on habitats around the country?”
The study was titled “Habitat Loss and Modification Due to Gas Development in the Fayetteville Shale.” In addition to Moran, authors are biology professor Maureen R. McClung and students Brandon Cox, Rachel L. Wells and Chloe C. Benichou, who has since graduated.
Moran said they chose the Fayetteville Shale because it’s close to Hendrix and is one of the first developments in a habitat that includes temperate forests. Fayetteville Shale is also nearing its end, he said.
“Fayetteville Shale drilling rates are declining really rapidly,” Moran said.
McClung said the study is unique “in that it offers a look at what the total impact on land use could be for a shale area that is nearing the end of its development. Other areas (such as Pennsylvania and Ohio) still have years of exploration and production ahead of them, so our data could inform decision-makers as to what the ultimate disturbance to the landscape could be,” she said. “Unless you live or work in an area where fracking is occurring, it’s difficult to understand just how severe the impact to the land can be. Our study quantifies that impact.”
Moran said Arkansas woodlands have been lost to the development of cities and towns, but a lot of forest remains in this part of the state.
“Natural habitats are important for a lot of species,” he said.
Moran said the study shows a definite impact on habitat.
“We found an average decline in forest cover and a really large increase in development,” he said. “In the Fayetteville Shale, the gas development, so far, has either developed or modified dramatically over 100 square kilometers — converted from natural habitat to developed — well pads, roads, other things. What we found was that the natural-gas industry is really fragmenting habitats.”
Many species thrive in unbroken forests, areas of contiguous forest habitat, he said.
“Lots of birds like to breed in interiors of the forest,” he said.
Humans make edge habitats, such as forest next to pastureland, or next to a road.
“What that edge habitat does is really attract a lot of edge species,” he said. Those include white-tailed deer, raccoons, opossums. “They like to live between two habitats. A lot of those are predators, like raccoon. Interior forest birds do poorly when they’re near the edge.
“The gas development in the Fayetteville Shale, so far, up to 2012 at least, has increased edge habitat by about 700 miles in those five counties we studied.”
Two species that have declined nationwide, he said, are the wood thrush, which already is endangered, and the cerulean warbler.
“They don’t like fragmented habitats at all,” Moran said. “The wood thrush is kind of famous because it has this beautiful call, and people like listening to it.”
Other species of concern, Moran said, are a “couple of mussels in the [Little] Red River,” as well as the yellow-cheeked darter, which is common around Clinton. The darter “probably is” being negatively affected by the changes in habitat, he said.
With gas development, acreage is cleared, roads are built, and wells are installed, which can “remove habitat from the system or modify it in ways that aren’t necessarily good for the species,” Moran said. The study focused on what effects these surface changes have had on different types of habitat. “Our interest is how the land use changes,” he said.
“We used the Google Earth technology, which is a great way for landscape ecologists to study around the globe,” he said. “They update those maps every six months to a year.”
The study, which Moran described as “very tedious,” took nine months, but it would have taken years before this technology, he said. “Until the last couple of decades, we didn’t have this at our fingertips,” Moran said.
He said the research started in 2001 or 2002, prior to fracking, and different types of landscapes were measured. They were compared with 2012, the last year that data were available for the whole area, he said.
“We had to literally sit there with a computer and trace and measure out. … If you draw a polygon around something, Goggle Earth will measure it,” he said. Forests, developed areas, pasture land, etc. were measured.
“We took random samples from a little over 100 square miles, total,” he said. “It’s only a small piece, but we basically took random sections from within the Fayetteville Shale areas, and then areas outside the shale to compare.”
He said the Hendrix researchers knew the difference between human-made and natural changes.
“With the satellite imagery as good as it is now, it’s actually very easy to tell,” Moran said. “You can see forests grow back; you can see pipelines going to them; you can see roads going to them.”
He said the Arkansas Oil and Gas Commission has all the well locations, which were overlaid on the map.
Most of the work was done sitting in front of a computer, although, he said, researchers went to actual sites “to confirm we saw what we thought we saw.”
“It’s an example of how technology allowed us to do science so much faster,” he said.
Cox, a junior from Rogers, was involved in the study his sophomore year.
“We were really tight-knit; there was always open discussion,” he said. “It was nice, especially as a sophomore, when you’re scared of professors and kind of put them on a pedestal. … It was cool to discuss things and have them value your opinion.”
Rogers, a chemistry and philosophy major, said he didn’t know much about the Fayetteville Shale, or fracking, when he got involved in the study.
“Even though I’m studying chemistry and philosophy, I’m really into biology and ecology stuff; I love it,” he said.
At first, the research was daunting, he said. “There for a while, we were doing eight hours a week. It’s a little windowless room with a computer. It sounds pretty rough, pretty stressful. Before we had the methodology down, you didn’t see the light of day, and you’re sitting in front of the computer. It kind of feels like an extra class. As the research went on, you got used to what you were doing, and you could listen to music. … It kind of became relaxing. It became a break from real homework. I began to enjoy doing it.”
Cox said it was satisfying to see the results as the study went along, instead of having to wait until the end.
“Yes, we saw a negative result, to keep it simple, I guess,” Cox said. “I wasn’t surprised that there was a negative change. … Before the research, I didn’t really know much about the drilling other than it was happening, and it’s happening locally, and it’s happening all over the United States. It’s hard to know until you see how spread out it is and how many wells there actually are. There are thousands.”
Moran and McClung said their study found that the
negative impact on habitats could be mitigated just by better decisions being made by the gas-drilling companies about where wells are placed.
“One of the big points I wanted to bring home,” Moran said, “is the area they impact — 2 to 3 percent — a lot of times they fragmented habitat, and they didn’t really have to. There would be already fragmented habitat nearby, which would be a pretty easy place to put a well. There may be some better choices on where to place wells that would limit the impact on habitats a lot. We’re trying to show, if done a little differently, you might be able to extract just as much gas and limit the damage.”
Moran said gas-drilling companies could consult with biological conservationists before drilling wells.
“If they do less environmental damage, they’re much less likely to get regulated as much,” he said.
“Basically, drill smarter. In my view, it’s in everyone’s interest to drill smarter.”
Cox said that in addition to making the gas-drilling companies “more conscious” of where they are placing roads and wells, “I hope the data we’re accumulating gets added to the bundle of evidence against natural-gas drilling — how it’s not that cost-effective, and how it might be a temporary solution to our fuel problem,” he said.
Moran said the work is online but that it will be published in a journal in a couple of months. Moran said interested entities, from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission to the Oil and Gas Commission, will have access to the study.
“Hopefully, it gets out there in the scientific community,” he said.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansasonline.com.