CHEYENNE, Wyo. - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday for the first time that "fracking" - a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells - might be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.
CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday for the first time that “fracking” — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — might be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.
The draft finding could have significant implications while states, including Ohio, try to determine how to best regulate the process.
“All of the rhetoric from the industry has been there’s no way that this can happen,” said Trent Dougherty, a lawyer for the advocacy group Ohio Environmental Council.
“This shows that it has happened, and we need to protect the people in Ohio.”
The EPA found that hydrocarbons likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials last year advised them not to drink the water.
The announcement will add to the controversy over fracking, which has played a large role in opening up many gas reserves, including the Marcellus shale in the eastern United States and the Utica shale in Ohio in recent years.
The industry has long contended that fracking is safe, but environmentalists and some residents disagree.
In Ohio, where oil and gas companies are buying up mineral rights beneath millions of acres of land across the state, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is in charge of overseeing the new field.
Andy Ware, a deputy director at the agency, stressed that Wyoming state regulators dispute the findings and that Ohio’s geology is different.
“We’re confident that we will protect groundwater — we are protecting groundwater,” he said.
The U.S. EPA said its announcement is the first step in a process of opening up its findings for review by the public and other scientists.
“EPA’s highest priority remains ensuring that Pavillion residents have access to safe drinking water,” said Jim Martin, EPA regional administrator in Denver. “We look forward to having these findings in the draft report informed by a transparent and public review process.”
The EPA also emphasized that the findings are specific to the Pavillion area. Fracking there occurred below the level of the drinking water aquifer and close to water wells. Elsewhere, drilling is more remote and fracking occurs much deeper than the level of groundwater that normally would be used.
Pavillion resident John Fenton applauded the EPA for listening to homeowners with contaminated water.
“Those of us who suffer the impacts from the unchecked development in our community are extremely happy the contamination source is being identified,” Fenton said.
Calgary, Alberta-based Encana owns the Pavillion gas field. Spokesman Doug Hock said there was much to question about the draft study.
The compounds the EPA said could be associated with fracking, he said, could have had origins not related to gas development, such as contamination in the sampling process, water-well construction or natural occurrence.
“There are still a lot of questions that need to be answered. This is a probability, and it is one we believe is incorrect,” Hock said.
Tom Stewart, with the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, said there have been more than a million “ frack jobs” created in the United States.
“There has always been circumstances that they say that there’s a connection that did not necessarily exist.”
U.S. Sen. James Inhofe said the study was “not based on sound science but rather on political science.”
“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,” the Oklahoma Republican said in a statement.
Wyoming last year became one of the first states to require oil and gas companies to disclose the chemicals used in fracking.
Ohio does not require full disclosure.
Last year, oil and gas company speculators visited Robert Bevier’s 500-acre farm north of Mansfield to try to sign him to a lease.
He said he is for drilling, but wants it to be done by a reputable company that doesn’t put cash ahead of environmental responsibility.
“I don’t want my farm turned into a waste zone,” he said.
Information from Dispatch reporter Bill Bush and the Associated Press was used in this story.