Fracking chemicals

Paul McMahon made this Official Information request to Waikato Regional Council

The request was successful.

From: Paul McMahon

Dear Waikato Regional Council,

I would like to make an inquiry under the Local Government Official Information and Meetings Act, please.

In information previously supplied to me on 9 August, 2012, by Perry Empson I was informed that one of the materials used for hydraulic fracturing in the well in your region was NE-118, which included as an ingredient an "aromatic hydrocarbon solvent" - can you please tell me what the precise aromatic hydrocarbon solvent is?

Yours faithfully,

Paul McMahon

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From: Paul McMahon

Dear Waikato Regional Council,

Can you please inform me whether or not you will be responding to my August 20, 2012 LGOIMA inquiry? Your Council has not responded within the statutory time-frame.

Regards,
Paul McMahon

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From: Hayley Farrington

Dear Mr McMahon,

 

Thank you for your email this morning. Unfortunately I have not received a
copy of your 20 August request for information and we apologise that this
email seems to have either been forwarded to the wrong staff member or
misplaced.

 

We will provide you with the information you have requested as soon as
possible. As the staff member here at Council who deals with Official
Information requests I will take responsibility for your request from
here.

 

Please do not hesitate to contact me directly should you have any further
concerns, we will be in touch in due course with a response to your
request and apologise again for not having received your 20 August email.

 

Kind regards,

 

Hayley Farrington | Contracts and Information Administrator  | Legal
Services
Waikato Regional Council
P: +64 7 859 0763
F: +64 7 859 0998
Private Bag 3038, Waikato Mail Centre, Hamilton 3240
Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

 

 

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From: Paul McMahon

Dear Hayley Farrington,

Ok, thank you for your reply.

Yours sincerely,
Paul McMahon

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From: Hayley Farrington

Dear Mr McMahon,

 

Our response to your questions is as follows ;

 

The ingredient referred to in the MSDS sheet for NE-118 as “aromatic
hydrocarbon solvent” has a chemical abstract number of 64742-94-5. A
search on this using the CAS number indicates that it is a heavy aromatic
solvent naphtha (petroleum) which is defined by the US Environmental
Protection Agency as a “complex combination of hydrocarbons obtained from
distillation of aromatic streams. It consists predominantly of aromatic
hydrocarbons having carbon numbers predominantly in the range of C9
through C16 and boiling in the range of approximately 165.degree.C to
290.degree”.

 

The term “aromatic hydrocarbon” refers to a range of hydrocarbon chemicals
that have an aromatic structure (i.e. a ring structure rather than a chain
structure). The term naphtha indicates that the ring structure is based on
naphthalene which has a double ring structure. It is produced as an
intermediate hydrocarbon liquid stream derived from the [1]refining of
[2]crude oil. This is as precise as you can get without undertaking a
chemical fingerprint analysis of each batch of the solvent used or
supplied which will indicate a complex variety of structures. It is about
as specific as the terms diesel, petrol, kerosene etc which are all
complex mixtures of a variety of hydrocarbons derived from fractional
distillation of crude oil.

 

We hope you find this information helpful, and we apologise once again for
the delay in responding to you.

 

Kind regards,

 

Hayley Farrington | Contracts and Information Administrator  | Legal
Services
Waikato Regional Council
P: +64 7 859 0763
F: +64 7 859 0998
Private Bag 3038, Waikato Mail Centre, Hamilton 3240
Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

 

 

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From: Hayley Farrington


Attachment NE 118.pdf
26K Download View as HTML

Attachment sds us atosol 200.pdf
43K Download View as HTML


Dear Mr McMahon,

 

Please find attached two PDF documents to accompany our response.

 

Kind regards,

 

Hayley Farrington | Contracts and Information Administrator  | Legal
Services
Waikato Regional Council
P: +64 7 859 0763
F: +64 7 859 0998
Private Bag 3038, Waikato Mail Centre, Hamilton 3240
Please consider the environment before printing this email

 

 

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