Major EPA Fracking Study Will Tap Into Pennsylvania Data
A major Environmental Protection Agency report on natural gas drilling will include a lot of information from Pennsylvania.
The federal study won’t be released until 2014, but the agency recently published a progress report. The EPA is examining five stages of hydraulic fracturing, and assessing each step’s risk of contaminating drinking water. That includes everything from where drillers withdraw their water, to what chemicals they mix in, to how fracking fluid is stored on drilling sites. The study will also probe well construction standards and waste disposal methods.
The study includes an extensive look at drilling in Bradford and Washington Counties. The EPA is also looking at spill data from Pennsylvania drilling sites, and using computer models to predict how much water will be withdrawn from the Susquehanna River Basin in the future.
Keep reading for a look inside the EPA’s progress report. We’ve annotated the document to flag the highlights, as well as the Pennsylvania-specific information.