{"id":3104,"date":"2011-12-13T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=3104"},"modified":"2011-12-13T10:28:48","modified_gmt":"2011-12-13T16:28:48","slug":"industry-responds-to-epa-fracking-contamination-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/13\/industry-responds-to-epa-fracking-contamination-report\/","title":{"rendered":"How the Natural Gas Industry Is Responding to the EPA Fracking Contamination Report"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_3120\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 224px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\" A natural gas well drilling rig in Sublette County, WY\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/806458.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3120\" title=\"Demand For Natural Gas\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/806458.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"224\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/806458.jpg 224w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/12\/806458-220x347.jpg 220w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 224px) 100vw, 224px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo by Michael Smith\/Newsmakers<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A natural gas well drilling rig in Sublette County, WY<\/p><\/div>\n<p>It&#8217;s been only a few days since the EPA released<a href=\"http:\/\/yosemite.epa.gov\/opa\/admpress.nsf\/d0cf6618525a9efb85257359003fb69d\/ef35bd26a80d6ce3852579600065c94e!OpenDocument\"> draft findings of contamination<\/a> by hydraulic fracturing (&#8220;fracking&#8221;) drilling operations in Wyoming, and already the industry is attempting to drill holes in the EPA&#8217;s findings.\u00a0Residents\u00a0near the drilling sites in Pavillion, Wyoming asked the EPA three years ago to investigate possible contamination after noticing water from their wells started tasting and looking off. So what has been the industry&#8217;s response?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Question the evidence.\u00a0<\/strong>The company behind the alleged contamination, Encana, clearly hopes to discredit the EPA&#8217;s findings. In a <a href=\"http:\/\/encana.com\/news\/newsreleases\/2011\/1212-why-encana-refutes-epa-pavillion-report.html\">lengthy press release<\/a>\u00a0Monday, the company said the EPA&#8217;s findings are &#8220;irresponsible&#8221; and full of discrepancies. The EPA&#8217;s &#8220;conclusions do not stand up to the rigor of a non-partisan, scientific-based review,&#8221; the company said, but Encana doesn&#8217;t say if that scientific review has been performed or not. (The EPA released the findings in draft form to allow public input and scientific review, which they say is standard practice.) And while attempting to discredit many of the EPA&#8217;s discoveries, Encana also points to other EPA evidence as\u00a0vindicating. &#8220;The EPA&#8217;s reported results of all four phases of its domestic water well tests do not exceed federal or state drinking water quality standards for any constituent related to oil and gas development,&#8221; the Encana release states.<!--more--><\/li>\n<li><strong>The chemicals are there naturally.\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\">StateImpact Pennsylvania<\/a>, a sister site in the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/\">StateImpact<\/a>\u00a0network,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/2011\/12\/12\/chesapeake-official-disputes-epas-report-on-pavilion-wyo\/\">published an email<\/a>\u00a0from\u00a0Chesapeake\u00a0Energy CEO Steve Dixon to his employees. Chesapeake is one of the bigger players in the fracking world, and claims on its website that it is \u201cthe second-largest\u00a0producer\u00a0of nat\u00adural gas\u201d and \u201cmost active driller of new wells\u201d in the coun\u00adtry.\u00a0While accusing the EPA of making several causal links, Dixon makes one of his own, saying that the elevated levels of methane, benzene and other petrochemical compounds found in EPA monitoring wells are naturally\u00a0occurring\u00a0because the wells were drilled &#8220;into hydrocarbon-bearing zones.&#8221; (He paraphrases a line from Encana&#8217;s press release, saying &#8220;frack\u00ading did not put [those chemicals] there, nature did.&#8221;)\u00a0Dixon says that he thinks the EPA is &#8220;more\u00a0interested\u00a0in their PR strat\u00adegy and in estab\u00adlish\u00ading a con\u00adnec\u00adtion between hydraulic frac\u00adtur\u00ading and water con\u00adt\u00ada\u00adm\u00adi\u00adna\u00adtion than in find\u00ading the\u00a0truth.&#8221;\u00a0Dixon also lauds the industry&#8217;s &#8220;sterling record of\u00a0responsible hydraulic frac\u00adtur\u00ading&#8221; and says that his company &#8220;meets or exceeds all\u00a0regulatory\u00a0require\u00adments and con\u00adtin\u00adues to lead best\u00a0practices\u00a0in our indus\u00adtry.&#8221; The Pennsylvania <a href=\"http:\/\/www.depweb.state.pa.us\/portal\/server.pt\/community\/dep_home\/5968\">Department of Environmental Protection<\/a> gave Chesapeake the largest fine in history for a tank fire and contaminating wells in February in Pennsylvania,\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/pennsylvania\/tag\/chesapeake-energy\/\">according to StateImpact Pennsylvania<\/a>. And a Chesapeake well &#8220;spilled hun\u00addreds of thou\u00adsands of gal\u00adlons of frack\u00ading fluid&#8221; earlier this year.<\/li>\n<li><div class=\"related-content alignright\"><h4 class=\"related-header\">Related<\/h4><div class=\"links\"><h5>Posts<\/h5><ul><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/16\/as-drilling-grows-is-enforcement-shrinking\/\">As Drilling Grows, Is Enforcement Shrinking?<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/22\/railroad-commission-punts-on-fracking-disclosure-rules\/\">Texas Railroad Commission Punts on Fracking Disclosure Rules<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/28\/abundant-natural-gas-spells-trouble-for-renewables\/\">How Abundant Natural Gas Spells Trouble for Renewables<\/a><\/li><li class=\"link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/12\/08\/fracking-contaminated-water-supply-epa-says\/\">Fracking Contaminated Water Supply, EPA\u00a0Says<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/div><div class=\"topics\"><h5>Topics<\/h5><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/108093975-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/barnett-shale\/\">What Is The Barnett Shale?<\/a><\/p><p class=\"topic\"><img class=\"alignleft\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/07\/Hydraulic-FrackingBarnettShaleDrilling-60x60.jpg\" height=\"60\" width=\"60\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/topic\/hydraulic-fracturing-2\/\">How Does Hydraulic Fracturing (\u201cFracking\u201d) Work?<\/a><\/p><\/div><\/div><strong>Wyoming is an outlier.\u00a0<\/strong>The <em>Houston Chronicle<\/em> talks to industry analysts and finds what could be another<a href=\"http:\/\/fuelfix.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/09\/industry-what-happens-in-wyoming-doesnt-happen-in-texas\/\">\u00a0blueprint for questioning the study<\/a>: the gas wells in Wyoming were drilled under circumstances not found in most other fracking sites, with shallower wells, closer to water sources. Some of the fracking wells were drilled at around 1,200 feet, while most other shale drilling sites are between 4,000 and 14,000 feet underground, well below water sources. So some in the industry may not plan to debunk the report, but instead point out that the Wyoming case is unique.<\/li>\n<li><strong>States are the best regulators.\u00a0<\/strong>The <em>Houston Chronicle<\/em> also\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/fuelfix.com\/blog\/2011\/12\/09\/industry-what-happens-in-wyoming-doesnt-happen-in-texas\/\">reports <\/a>that the chairman of the Railroad Commission of Texas, which oversees drilling in the state, said that the\u00a0findings\u00a0in Wyoming have nothing to do with fracking in Texas. &#8220;The geology of Texas is different,\u201d Elizabeth Ames Jones said.\u00a0\u201cHydraulic fracturing does not go on close to the surface here and it would be impossible to migrate up from miles below the earth to a water table,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have stringent rules on well construction and extra precautions must be taken near water tables. There is no reason to apply this EPA finding in Wyoming \u2014 regardless of what the results end up proving to be \u2014 in Texas.\u201d Jones is the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.eenews.net\/public\/Greenwire\/2011\/12\/09\/1\">subject of a recent report<\/a> by <em>Greenwire<\/em> that found that she &#8220;gets more campaign contributions from oil and gas than from any other industry.&#8221; <em>Greenwire<\/em> reports that Jones has received at least over a million dollars in campaign donations from the industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The EPA report is now in a public comment period for 45 days, and will be in a peer-review by independent scientists for 30 days. The EPA told StateImpact Texas that there will not be a moratorium on drilling at the Wyoming site while the findings are under review.<\/p>\n<p>Here is the full EPA report on groundwater contamination linked to fracking in Wyoming:<\/p>\n<div><div class=\"embed-documentcloud\" style=\"text-align: center;\"><div class=\"DC-embed DC-embed-document DV-container\"> <div style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:129.4444444444444%;height:0;overflow:hidden;max-width:100%;\"> <iframe src=\"\/\/www.documentcloud.org\/documents\/272140-epa-reportonpavillion-dec-8-2011.html?embed=true&amp;responsive=false&amp;sidebar=false\" title=\"EPA ReportOnPavillion Dec 8 2011 (Hosted by DocumentCloud)\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts allow-same-origin allow-popups allow-forms\" frameborder=\"0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:1px solid #aaa;border-bottom:0;box-sizing:border-box;\"><\/iframe> <\/div> <\/div><\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s been only a few days since the EPA released draft findings of contamination by hydraulic fracturing (&#8220;fracking&#8221;) drilling operations in Wyoming, and already the industry is attempting to drill holes in the EPA&#8217;s findings.\u00a0Residents\u00a0near the drilling sites in Pavillion, Wyoming asked the EPA three years ago to investigate possible contamination after noticing water from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":3120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[15,22,21,50],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3104"}],"version-history":[{"count":19,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3125,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3104\/revisions\/3125"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}