Fracking Water Contaminates Ground Water in Wyoming

Gas-Fracking Chemicals Found in WY Aquifer
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. - Dec 8, 2011 3:50 PM ET

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said for the first time it found chemicals used in extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing in a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming.

Samples taken from two deep water-monitoring wells near a gas field in Pavillion, Wyoming, showed synthetic chemicals such as glycols and alcohols “consistent with gas production and hydraulic-fracturing fluids,” the agency said today in an e- mailed statement.

The U.S. gets about one-third of its gas from fracturing, or fracking, in which millions of gallons of chemically treated water and sand are forced underground to break rock and let trapped vapor flow. The findings give ammunition to environmental groups, such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, that have said the drilling risks tainting drinking water and needs stronger regulation.

“This is just evidence of why we need better rules,” Amy Mall, senior policy analyst for the group in Washington, said in an interview. “It’s a game-changer. EPA experts and scientists have recognized that there is real contamination, that there is a real scientific basis for linking it to fracking.”

After complaints from residents of Pavillion, about 230 miles (370 kilometers) northeast of Salt Lake City, the EPA began investigating private drinking-water wells about three years ago. Calgary-based EnCana Corp. (ECA), Canada’s largest natural- gas producer, owns about 150 wells in Pavillion, according to spokesman Doug Hock.
‘Not Definitive’

“They’ve used terms like ‘likely,’” Hock said today in an interview. “What they’ve come up with here is a probability. It’s not a definitive conclusion.”

Synthetic chemicals discovered in the aquifer are just as likely “the result of contamination from their own sampling,” he said.

Industry representatives such as Aubrey McClendon, chairman and chief executive officer of Chesapeake Energy Corp. (CHK), the most active U.S. oil and natural-gas driller among well operators, have said there haven’t been proven cases of fracking fluids contaminating drinking water.

“Try not to be the 51st person to write a story about the alleged contamination of somebody’s water well from fracking,” McClendon said April 8 at the Society of American Business Editors and Writers conference at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “There have been some issues with drilling wells. They don’t come from fracking.”
Deep Monitoring

In 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services recommended that Pavillion residents use alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking. While testing detected petroleum hydrocarbons in wells and in groundwater, the agency at the time said it couldn’t pinpoint the source of the contamination.

The EPA dug two deep monitoring wells into the aquifer and found “compounds likely associated with gas-production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” according to today’s statement. Levels of the chemicals in the deep wells are “well above” acceptable standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the agency said.

Fracking chemicals may have entered the aquifer through faulty well construction, gaps in impermeable rock or fractures created during drilling, the EPA said.

“There are various things that can go wrong, but it all points to the fact that we need stronger rules,” Mall said.
‘Poor Aquifer’

EnCana has been providing drinking water to about 21 families in Pavillion since August, 2010, Hock said. Some resident were already using outside water sources “because they realize it’s a very poor aquifer,” he said.

Hock said he wasn’t sure if EnCana used the synthetic chemicals found in the aquifer when fracking wells in Pavillion.

“I don’t believe that we did,” Hock said. “I don’t know for certain.”

Today’s draft findings are specific to Pavillion, where fracking is occurring “in and below the drinking-water aquifer” and close to water wells, the agency said. The findings will be submitted to an independent scientific review panel.

“Given the area’s complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking-water wells over time,” the agency said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Jim Efstathiou Jr. in New York at Bloomberg News

EPA: 'Fracking' likely polluted town's water
Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens

Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens released this photo saying it shows a hydraulic fracturing drill site in the Pavillion/Muddy Ridge gas field. The group said it was taken from the porch of its chairman, John Fenton.
By msnbc.com staff and news services
A controversial method of drilling for oil and natural gas appears to be the cause of groundwater pollution in a central Wyoming town, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday.

The EPA last month said it had found compounds associated with chemicals used in the drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in the groundwater beneath Pavillion. Many residents say their well water has reeked of chemicals since the drilling began there and first complained to the EPA in 2008.

But until Thursday, the EPA said it could not speculate on where the contaminants came from.

In the draft report (.pdf) released Thursday, the EPA said that "the explanation best fitting the data ... is that constituents associated with hydraulic fracturing have been released into the Wind River drinking water aquifer."

Health officials had earlier advised residents not to drink their water after the EPA said it had found benzene and other hydrocarbons in wells it tested.

The process pumps pressurized water, sand and chemicals underground to open fissures and improve the flow of oil or gas.

The EPA emphasized that the findings are specific to the Pavillion area, noting that the specific type of fracking used there differed from fracking methods used elsewhere in regions with different geological characteristics.

The fracking occurred below the level of the drinking water aquifer and close to water wells, the EPA said. Elsewhere, drilling is more remote and fracking occurs much deeper than the level of groundwater that anybody would use.

The EPA is separately working on a national study of fracking.

Doug Hock, a spokesman for EnCana Corp., which owns rights to the Pavillion-area field, slammed the draft report. "The synthetic chemicals could just have easily come from contamination when the EPA did their sampling, or from how they constructed their monitoring wells."

Pavillion residents who organized to seek the tests welcomed the report.

"We are grateful to the EPA for listening to our concerns and acting on them," said John Fenton, chair of Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens.

Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens

Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens provided this photo of the home of John and Katherine Fenton. It said the haze was from fracking fluids vaporized in the drilling process and that it lasted for about 10 minutes. Similar releases happened a dozen times over 3 days, it added.
"This investigation proves the importance of having a federal agency that can protect people and the environment," added Fenton, whose home is across from one drill site. "We hope that answers to our on-going health problems and other impacts can now be addressed and that the responsible parties will finally be required to remediate the damages."

The industry contends that fracking is safe and its supporters were quick to blast the EPA.

"EPA's conclusions are not based on sound science but rather on political science," Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla, said in a statement. "Its findings are premature, given that the agency has not gone through the necessary peer-review process, and there are still serious outstanding questions regarding EPA's data and methodology."

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"This announcement is part of President Obama's war on fossil fuels and his determination to shut down natural gas production," added Inhofe, the senior Republican on the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works.

Fracking has opened up areas that were previously considered too costly to drill. The most promising include the Marcellus Shale formation in the Northeast.

Development of the new shale deposits over the last few years has provided the United States with a century's worth of natural gas supply.

Pa. town near fracking fights to get bottled water back

In Pennsylvania, production from the Marcellus has led to an energy boom that New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is keen to replicate by lifting an existing moratorium on using the fracking process.

But hearings on that proposal have been contentious.

At the last hearing last month, protesters gathered in downtown Manhattan to express concern about the safety of water supplies, holding signs saying "Governor Cuomo, don't frack it up" and "Don't frack with New York."

"We have to be literally insane to contemplate fracking," state Sen. Tony Avella told reporters outside the hearings. "Wake up Governor Cuomo, this is not going to provide jobs or revenue, but what it will do is poison the water supply for 17 million New Yorkers."

This article includes reporting by msnbc.com's Miguel Llanos, The Associated Press and Reuters.

NOW,TO ALL THOSE WHO SAY WE ARE JUST USING SCARE TACTICS REGARDING FRACKING, PLEASE EAT SOME CROW. AND TO THOSE IN POWER WHO CAN DO SOMETHING TO STOP THIS, NOW IS THE TIME TO ACT (NOT TALK, NOT EQUIVOCATE, NOT EVADE, NOT SAY IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE).