Encana Refutes EPA Study That Links Fracking to Water Pollution

Susan Phillips

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Susan Phillips tells stories about the consequences of political decisions on people's every day lives. She has worked as a reporter for WHYY since 2004. Susan's coverage of the 2008 Presidential election resulted in a story on the front page of the New York Times. In 2010 she traveled to Haiti to cover the earthquake. That same year she produced an award-winning series on Pennsylvania's natural gas rush called "The Shale Game." She received a 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Journalism Award for her work covering natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. She has also won several Edward R. Murrow awards for her work with StateImpact. In 2013/14 she spent a year at MIT as a Knight Science Journalism Fellow. She has also been a Metcalf Fellow, an MBL Logan Science Journalism Fellow and reported from Marrakech on the 2016 climate talks as an International Reporting Project Fellow. A graduate of Columbia School of Journalism, she earned her Bachelor's degree in International Relations from George Washington University.

December 20, 2011 | 2:20 PM

The natural gas company Encana corporation says the Environmental Protection Agency made several mistakes in its recently released report on water contamination in Pavilion, Wyo. The EPA’s report cited hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, as the likely cause of polluted drinking water in the Wyoming town. Encana official David Stewart, said in a conference call today that many of the chemicals cited by the EPA as present in the drinking water, occur naturally as a result of the area’s geology. Stewart said the EPA’s findings of high levels of methane cannot be linked to gas drilling because methane has always existed in the area’s drinking water.
Stewart also went so far as to say that the chemicals used in the EPA’s test wells may have polluted the water.
The EPA reported that their investigation was hampered by lack of access to detailed chemical components of the fracking fluid used by Encana. Gas drillers are not required to reveal that information. But Stewart said the company did have plans to release more details of the chemicals used to frack the wells in Pavilion.
The Calgary, Alberta based company is one of the largest gas producers in North America, second only to Exxon Mobil Corporation. Encana called for an independent third party review of the study. The company plans to submit their response to the study before the public comment period ends on January 27, 2012.