Fracking Linked to Groundwater Pollution, Including High Levels of Carcinogens

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 8, 2011 | 6:49 PM

In an earlier post we wrote about an EPA report out Thursday that links fracking with groundwater contamination. I asked the EPA about the health risks of drinking that water, and here’s their response.

“Our concern is about the migration of contaminants in the aquifer and

the safety of drinking water wells over time.  Sample results indicate

that a number of drinking water and stock wells have low-level

detections of organic compounds.  In monitoring wells, health and safety

values for several contaminants were exceeded, including benzene

concentrations orders of magnitude above Safe Drinking Water Act

standards and pH at levels that present a contact and ingestion threat.

These monitoring wells are in close proximity to drinking water wells.

There is no known geologic barrier separating the contamination found in

the monitoring wells from the water in nearby drinking water wells.

Without more information on flow direction and contaminant movement,

significant uncertainty exists regarding specific future impacts to

drinking water wells.  Our sample results reflect a single snapshot in

time and we are unable to determine any trends or changes in condition.”

EPA officials have instructed the residents of Pavilion, Wyo. not to drink their water and to keep their windows open when showering. One thing mentioned in the EPA’s report was the challenges facing researchers who did not have access to the names and concentrations of all the chemicals used in fracking fluid. That’s because the natural gas industry is exempt from several federal statutes, including the Safe Drinking Water Act. For more on these exemptions, click here.