Ground Water Professionals Urge More Fracking Studies

Susan Phillips / StateImpactPA

A view of the Delaware River in Mil­ford, Pa.

The National Ground Water Asso­ci­a­tion has issued pub­lic pol­icy guide­lines for nat­ural gas drilling.  The pub­li­ca­tion lists a num­ber of rec­om­men­da­tions, includ­ing more studies.

“NGWA rec­og­nizes that hydraulic frac­tur­ing of oil and gas wells is a mature tech­nol­ogy and has been a wide­spread prac­tice for many decades. While no wide­spread water qual­ity or quan­tity issues have been defin­i­tively documented…NGWA believes addi­tional stud­ies, research and mon­i­tor­ing related to the poten­tial for ground­wa­ter con­t­a­m­i­na­tion from the instal­la­tion, hydraulic frac­tur­ing, oper­a­tion, and main­te­nance of oil and gas wells are needed.”

The group, made up of hydro­ge­ol­o­gists, engi­neers, con­trac­tors and man­u­fac­tur­ers who work in the ground water field, also called for full dis­clo­sure of chem­i­cals used in the gas drilling process.

• Dis­clo­sure of all chem­i­cals used in the oil or gas well hydraulic frac­tur­ing process to the appro­pri­ate gov­ern­men­tal entity
• Proper con­struc­tion and reg­u­lar main­te­nance of oil or gas pro­duc­tion wells to pre­vent the migra­tion of nat­ural and injected flu­ids that could endan­ger cur­rent or future drink­ing water sources
• Best man­age­ment prac­tices or appro­pri­ate reg­u­la­tions to address sur­face spills and waste man­age­ment related to hydraulic fracturing
• Devel­op­ment of water sup­ply plans in areas where water is scarce or the poten­tial for water use con­flicts exist.

For the full report, click here.