EPA - Chemical Used In Hydraulic Fracturing Found In At Least 3 Wyoming Drinking Water Wells

[hatrack]

Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination <1> near the ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., have found that at least three water wells contain a chemical used in the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing. Scientists also found traces of other contaminants, including oil, gas or metals, in 11 of 39 wells tested there since March.

The study, which is being conducted under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, is the first time the EPA has undertaken its own water analysis in response to complaints of contamination in drilling areas, and it could be pivotal in the national debate <2> over the role of natural gas in America’s energy policy.

Abundant gas reserves are being aggressively developed in 31 states, including New York <3> and Pennsylvania <4>. Congress is mulling a bill <5> that aims to protect those water resources from hydraulic fracturing, the process in which fluids and sand are injected under high pressure to break up rock and release gas. But the industry says environmental regulation is unnecessary <6> because it is impossible for fracturing fluids to reach underground water supplies and no such case has ever been proven.

Scientists in Wyoming will continue testing this fall to determine the level of chemicals in the water and exactly where they came from. If they find that the contamination did result from drilling, the placid plains arching up to the Wind River Range would become the first site where fracturing fluids have been scientifically linked to groundwater contamination

EDIT

http://www.propublica.org/feature/epa-chemicals-found-in-wyo.-drinking-water-might-be-from-fracking-825

No one could have predicted this!!

[kestrel91316]

1. WY will just have to suck it up and deal with it. They are too little to have any

influence. Not enough population for anyone to give a damn.

We must bow to the corporations and let them rape the land and ruin lives. It's the Amurkin Way (TM).

[Chulanowa]

2. Hmmm.

Step one) Inject toxic chemicals into the ground
Step two) Said chemicals break up and leach from arsenic and heavy metal-bearing igneous rock
Step three) Siphon out toxic chemicals that lie underneath those rocks.

Yeah, can't see how anyone could have predicted this. sounds perfectly safe to me.

[pscot]

3. Umm. Actually I predicted this

I distinctly remember saying that if they keep forcing this shit into the ground under pressure, it's going to end up in the water supply. Nobody listens, goddammit.

[Nihil]

4. You were not alone

Unfortunately, there were dollars involved so that decided the matter.

Drinking water, climate change, species extinctions are all stuff for
the long term; profit is for this quarter and bonuses are for this year.
When the decision makers operate on these principles, there is little
hope for the merely sensible amongst us.