Wiseacre
Retired USAF Chief
EPA Blames Fracking for Wyoming Groundwater Contamination | StateImpact Pennsylvania
For the first time, fed*eral envi*ron*men*tal reg*u*la*tors have made a direct link between the con*tro*ver*sial drilling prac*tice known as hydraulic frac*tur*ing and ground*wa*ter contamination.
The EPA released on Thurs*day its draft inves*ti*ga*tion results on water pol*lu*tion in the Wyoming town of Pavilion.
This fed*eral find*ing link*ing “frack*ing” and ground*wa*ter pol*lu*tion could have wide*spread reper*cus*sions. Sev*eral states, includ*ing New York and Penn*syl*va*nia, are in the midst of cre*at*ing new gas-drilling reg*u*la*tions. Up until this report, indus*try rep*re*sen*ta*tives, along with the head of Pennsylvania’s Depart*ment of Envi*ron*men*tal Pro*tec*tion, have said no per*sua*sive evi*dence exists link*ing frack*ing directly to prob*lems with water qual*ity. DEP Sec*re*tary Michael Krancer recently tes*ti*fied in Con*gress that the idea that frack*ing pol*lutes ground*wa*ter is “bogus.”
Res*i*dents of Pavil*ion, Wy., began com*plain*ing about drink*ing water that smelled like chem*i*cals back in 2008. Inten*sive drilling for nat*ural gas in the area began in the late 1990’s and con*tin*ued until 2006. The area now has 169 nat*ural gas wells.
The draft report says inves*ti*ga*tors have found com*pounds in Pavilion’s ground*wa*ter asso*ci*ated with frack*ing. The EPA found high con*cen*tra*tions of ben*zene, xylene, gaso*line and diesel fuel in shal*low ground*wa*ter sup*plies that they linked to waste*water pits. But the report also found a num*ber of frack*ing chem*i*cals in much deeper fresh water wells.
About that study - what the EPA doesn't say is that the US Geological Survey has detected organic chemicals in the well water of Pavillion for at least 50 years.
The dangerous compound the EPA found in drinking water wells was 2-butoxyethyl phosphate, which isn't an oil and gas chemical at all, it's a common fire retardant used in association with plastics and plastic components in drinking water wells.
The pollution detected by the EPA and alleged to be linked to fracking was found in deep-water monitoring wells, not the shallower drinking wells. To the extent that drilling chemicals were found in the deeper monitoring wells, the EPA admits this may result from legacy pits, which are old wellsthat were drilled many years before fracking was used. The EPA also concedes that the inferior design of Pavillion's old wells allows seepage into the water supply. Safer well construction of the kind used today might have prevented any contaminents from leaking into the water supply.
The fracking in Pavillion takes place in unusually shallow wells of fewer than 1000-1500 feet deep. Most fracking today occurs 10,000 feet deep or more, far below normal drinking wells, which typically at 500 feet or less. Even the EPA acknowledges that Pavillion's drilling is far different from other fracking areas. So to imply that this study means that fracking everywhere else is dangerous is spurious.
I wouldn't trust the EPA one bit, obviously they and the Obama admin are in thrall to the greenies.
http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=21431
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