Coming soon: Audit to grade DEP’s oversight of drillers Water testing protocol remains center of transparency flap

Is the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection a lion or a lamb when it comes to regulating and policing shale gas operations?

One qualified and independent source will soon provide an answer. Im May, the office of Auditor General Eugene DePasquale is due to release a detailed investigation into the practice and protocol of the state's regulation of the drilling industry, a source from his office told me this week.

DePasquale announced the review in January, 2013, in the wake of a controversy over whether state investigators obscure or alter the outcome of investigations into drilling’s impact on water supplies by disclosing an incomplete suite of chemical tests. The intention of the probe, according to a letter from DePasquale, is to determine the "adequacy and effectiveness of DEP's monitoring of water quality as potentially impacted by shale gas development activities, including but not limited to systems and procedures for testing, screening, reporting and response to adverse impact such as contamination."

In other words, the probe will get to a question at the crux of the fracking debate: whether and to what degree the DEP is safeguarding water supplies from drilling.

The DEP’s testing protocol for wells potentially affected by drilling operations entered the public spotlight with a case by Loren Kiskadden seeking damages for pollution against the agency and Range Resources. The case, now pending in the Court of Common Pleas, claims that the department withheld full results of tests of Kiskadden’s water in June 2011 and January 2012. The ensuing “suite code” controversy came to light in September 2012 with the deposition of Taru Upadhyay, the DEP Bureau of Laboratories technical director, at a Environmental Board Hearing. Upadhyay testified that results for some metals, including copper, nickel, zinc and titanium, were not included in Kiskadden’s final report. This was not unusual, she said, because the lab only verifies concentrations of compounds ordered by the investigator from the oil and gas division, even if the samples were tested for a broader range.

DEP officials have since confirmed that the testing protocol for markers of contamination from Marcellus Shale production – including what and how many chemicals  are included in the final analysis -- falls to the discretion of individual investigators because they are best able to judge what chemicals are relevant to the investigation.

Watchdog agencies have characterized the DEP’s approach as random, incomplete, and a violation of public trust. Steve Hvozdovich, Marcellus Shale Policy Associate for Clean Water Action, said residents and watchdog agencies took it on faith that the department was following accepted protocol outlined by the federal Environmental Protection Agency in Method 200.7 – which requires testing for at least 24 different chemicals.

“This comes down to a lack of trust and a lack of transparency,” he said. “Nobody outside of the DEP offices knew this – that they were not quality controlling and quality assuring for the full 24 chemicals. It took a law-suit to bring that out … We need to have comprehensive testing, especially in a case where it originates from a residential complaint.”

Clean Water Action was one of a dozen agencies that signed a letter to the DEP on January 25, 2013 with concerns that the agency's testing methods “lack transparency; result in the withholding of vital data from affected households and the public; force residents to potentially undergo prolonged exposure to contaminants that impact health; and delay action necessary to correct pollution of drinking water supplies.”

But concerns of environmental activists are not shared by all. The DEP’s approach to regulation and enforcement under drilling supporter Governor Tom Corbett has a lot to do with the boss’s political values of how much government should be overseeing private business. The oil and gas industry – provider of cheap abundant energy that we all demand – has been the long-time beneficiary of regulatory passes. For starters, the entire problem of determining what, how, and if chemicals affect water is prodigiously complicated by the fact that the industry is exempt from federal laws that require disclosure and regulations of chemicals injected into the ground, and also laws governing hazardous waste coming out. Corbett, who won election in 2010 partially on a platform to limit state regulations on the industry, has been praised by industry supporters who defend the DEP oversight as sufficient and responsible.

No matter what it says, DePasquale’s report, coming in May, will likely be controversial due to the political volatility of the subject matter. In addition to the water-testing issue, the probe will “determine the adequacy and effectiveness of DEP’s monitoring of the handling, treatment and disposal of waste connected with shale gas development activity, including but not limited to systems and procedures for testing, tracking, treating, disposal, data collection and analysis, reuse and recycling, reporting, and response to adverse impact such as contamination.”

It’s sure to add a new wrinkle to the shale gas debate as the election year heats up, beginning with primaries among gubernatorial candidates who will likely have something to say about it. Those include John Hanger, a Democrat, who served as DEP Secretary under the Ed Rendell administration. Hanger is a gas supporter, but he is also in the pro-regulatory camp. As DEP chief he has been critical of – and sometimes at odds with -- certain companies he characterized as rogues. He has called on the DEP to reform its protocol to ensure a comprehensive data set of water test results gets to people who are potentially affected by drilling. The degree Hanger's message resonates with primary voters will be one of many tests of how much weight regulatory reform carries in the larger political equation.

Cabot demolishes home central to Dimock water dispute Methane problems persist in 9-square mile no-drilling zone

The Sautner home became focus of the antifracking movement
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI 

Cabot Oil & Gas executives may have ongoing problems with operations in Dimock Pennsylvania, but the status of water quality at 1101 Carter Road is no longer one of them.

After years of controversy, Cabot last year paid an undisclosed amount to owners of that property, Craig and Julie Sautner, to settle claims that drilling contaminated their water well. As part of the deal, Cabot acquired the 3.6-acre property, the status of which remained a matter of speculation until last week when flatbeds unloaded a demolition excavator and multiple dumpsters in the driveway of the vacant home.

The arrival of the demolition crew marked a concluding chapter of a conflict that began in September, 2008, when the Sautner’s water suddenly went bad after Cabot crews drilled a nearby gas well into the Marcellus Shale. Under oversight by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Cabot attempted to restore the Sautner’s water with a system of filters and tanks, which took up a substantial part of the basement. The system proved ineffective, and the company began delivering bottled water to the house.

Since then, the three bedroom ranch, sitting tidy and plumb under a canopy of maple trees off the bucolic dirt road, has become a symbol of the anti-fracking movement in the heart of Cabot’s most prolific well field.

EPA investigation begins at Sautner home in Jan. 2012
PHOTO JAMES PITARRESI 

As drilling intensified in the area, Cabot began dealing with similar water complaints at dozens of other homes in the Carter Road area. After investigating the complaints, the DEP held Cabot drilling operations into the Marcellus Shale responsible for methane contamination in 18 water wells, and eventually ordered the company to install an $11 million pipeline to deliver water to the homes. Cabot resisted, and the DEP’s order caused a political fracas that split the community. A group of residents, including those receiving royalty payments and other compensation from the company, sided with the industry and characterized those demanding the water line as malcontents. Plans for the water line were dropped after Tom Corbett, a gas drilling proponent, was elected governor in 2010. But the DEP continued to enforce a ban on drilling in a 9-square mile area around Carter Road where problems persisted.  The primary constituents affecting the wells – methane, arsenic, barium and other metals -- are naturally occurring, and also a product of drilling.

My coverage of this story for the Press & Sun-Bulletin, and later in writing Under the Surface and posts for this blog, brought me into the Saunter’s home on several occasions. The house, with three bathrooms and a finished basement, was fairly new and well kept. A barn-star adorned unblemished vinyl siding next to the garage entrance, and America the Beautiful was inscribed in a silvery stencil on the wall opposite the entrance in the main foyer. The interior decor reflected the Sautner’s fondness for wall art and country nick knacks, carefully arranged, along with framed photos of the Sautner’s teenage children – Cody and Kelly -- and their various pets, including Emmi, an overprotective Chihuahua that had to be contained when visitors arrived.

Cabot contractors demolish the former Sautner property
PHOTO TOM WILBER

The home drew national media attention in 2012, when the federal Environmental Protection Agency, assessing data compiled by Cabot and the DEP, determined that the aquifer feeding the Sautner’s well and other homes in the area showed hazardous levels of pollution. Richard Fetzer, the EPA’s site coordinator, summed it up this way in an internal memo on Jan. 19, 2012: “What is clear is that this data strongly suggests that hazardous substances have been released and are present in some home wells at levels that may present a public health concern.”

The federal agency began it’s own series of tests, and found arsenic, barium, manganese, chromium, and methane in five of 61 wells at levels “that could propose a health concern.” The agency determined no follow up was necessary, however, because residents of affected homes had been notified and polluted wells were taken off line or equipped with filters. The contamination -- in roughly 8 percent of the wells tested -- was from naturally occurring compounds that are also used in or associated with drilling operations, which can exacerbate existing problems or introduce new ones.

Frustrated that Cabot avoided accountability for the problem, the Sautners emerged as dedicated and nationally visible critics of the industry with a degree of animosity that grew with each passing year. They filled their yard and garden with anti-fracking posters, and jugs of brown water. They appeared on television and radio shows and were featured at anti-fracking rallies and concerts, typically carrying the water jugs that became something of a trademark of the movement. Notably, the Sautner’s story was featured in Gasland, the Emmy-award winning film by Josh Fox that premiered on HBO in 2010, and which was largely responsible for inspiring the anti-fracking movement.

The Sautner’s approach -- blunt, antagonistic, and sustained – was eventually met by counter attacks from Cabot and gas supporters, both locally and nationally, determined to discredit their claims. While Josh Fox portrayed the Sautners as victims-turned-activists in Gasland, filmmaker Phelim McAleer, from Ireland, depicted them in his film Frack Nation as self-serving and exploitive phonies. (My reviews of both films can be found here.)

A new message at 1101 Carter Road
PHOTO TOM WILBER

The story is complicated by water quality tests that show different things at different times to different parties, and a settlement with Cabot that forbids parties to talk about the case. We know that, while the Sautner home apparently passed spec when the EPA took samples in January, 2012, it had a documented history of pollution prior to that. We also know that the EPA confirmed water problems at five homes. And we know that, in addition to whatever other terms the Sautners settled with Cabot, they received  $167,500 for their property; and it struck me as newsworthy when I heard that contractors working for Cabot had arrived last week to demolish the home.

I placed a call to Cabot spokesman George Stark, who told me that the company had a potential buyer for the land and that it was more marketable without the house.  Stark said he did not know if the land would be developed, and could not offer other details.

An obvious line of thinking, reflected on anti-fracking list serves, is this: With no home, there is no well, and with no well, there is no liability related to water pollution, at least at 1101 Carter Road. But water pollution at other homes continues to plague the company. Regulators are now focusing on methane pollution in three water wells about a mile south of the Sautner home, where Carter Road tees into State Route 3023. The DEP has indentified Cabot’s Costello gas well at this location as the primary suspect.

Stark said that a service rig, which has been at the site for months, allows crews to “monitor” the casing of the gas well, which appears sound.

DEP officials explained it differently. They have not pinpointed a source, according to a recent report in the Scranton Times Tribune quoting DEP spokeswoman Colleen Connolly. But they have determined that the suspect gas well is "unviable" and will have to be plugged. In an email response to my query, Connolly reported that Cabot is ”continuing remedial efforts” at the Costello gas well and “evaluating the effectiveness” of the work.  Methane levels are fluctuating, she said. Additionally, tests have shown levels of iron and manganese that were elevated but within standards in some water samples. Elevated levels of these elements is “not uncommon during gas migration,” she reported.

New and substantial research shows that methane migration from shale gas development is not an isolated problem. A recent study published by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that methane concentrations to be, on average, six times higher for homes with water supplies a kilometer or less from Marcellus Shale gas wells. Ethane, another component of natural gas, averaged 23 times higher for homes within a kilometer from natural gas wells.

The Sautners were not on hand to see the demolition of their former home. After the settlement last year, they moved away – first to Ithaca New York, and later to Tennessee. The new owner, not surprisingly, had removed all the anti-fracking signs in the yard and replaced them with a single blue placard that read “Dimock Proud! Where the water IS clean and the people are friendly.”

The excavator raised its boom and swung it toward the side of the garage. It came to an abrupt stop just before impact. The operator then raised the talons of the bucket to the top of the garage, and guided them in a slow arch, peeling back a swath of roof. The machine began biting into the asphalt tiles, roof boards and rafters. Within an hour, the two-car garage was mostly gone, and the machine continued chewing apart the house and packing wads of siding, insulation, wiring and splintered timber into dumpsters. By the end of the next day, all traces of the house were gone, except the foundation, which was filled in shortly thereafter.

The Sautners are bound by the non-disclosure clause from discussing the Cabot settlement or the water issue. But Craig Sautner did offer this about the demolition: “Their (Cabot’s) actions speak louder than words. There is nothing that I can say that tells the story any better than what they did.”

Time will tell whether 1101 Carter Road remains an uninhabited part of Cabot’s oil patch. The company, meanwhile, is staking much of its future on the gas field in northern Pennsylvania. According to Richard Zeits, reporting for the financial website Seeking Alpha, Cabot officials anticipate at least 3,000 future drilling sites on several hundred thousand acres in Susquehanna County. Yet at the heart of this area, where it all began, the future of the nine-square mile no-drill zone remains awkwardly bound to its legacy of water issues.

Note: This video of the demolition was taken by Vera Scroggins, an anti-fracking activist who lives in Susquehanna County.

Records add context to EPA’s aborted Dimock mission Letter from federal hazmat chief shows focus on Cabot

EPA officials begin investigation in Dimock in January 2012
PHOTO BY JAMES PITARRESI

More records are coming to light that show the EPA ended its investigation last year into the impact on fracking on Dimock water wells in the face of political pressure.

After finding arsenic, barium, manganese, chromium, and methane in wells at levels “that could propose a health concern” the agency declared no follow up was required because residents of affected homes had been notified and polluted wells were taken off line or equipped with filters. The contamination -- in roughly 8 percent of 61 wells tested -- was from naturally occurring compounds that are also used in or associated with drilling operations, which can exacerbate existing problems or introduce new ones.

The issue – one of national policy (or not) -- is recently getting the attention it deserves. Last month Neela Barnerjee of the LA Times reported that an internal EPA power point presentation showed that agency staff warned that methane pollution in Dimock was a likely result of shale gas operations that can cause long-term damage to aquifers. On this blog, I have reported that the EPA quietly turned the results of its investigation over to a sister agency called the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, where the outcome faces an uncertain fate. The ATSDR lacks the enforcement muscle of the EPA, has a relatively small budget and staff, and is notoriously slow.

But there’s more to it, and much of the back-story can be found in a series of internal correspondence and documentation uncovered through a freedom of information request by Laura Legere, of the Scranton Times Union. These memos and others now available on line show EPA officials were urgently concerned about pollution documented in Cabot’s own testing of the water, as well as files kept by Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. This was the starting point of the EPA investigation, which intended to “characterize” conditions that were causing disconcerting test results.

A memo dated Dec. 7. 2011 (date corrected from original post) from Jon Capacasa, director of the EPA’s Water Protection Division, captures the urgency of the EPA’s request to the ATSDR to evaluate the health risk of chemicals already documented by Cabot and the DEP.

We believe that the private wells in and around the Dimock area have been negatively impacted by the Cabot natural gas drilling process as evidenced by the presence of methane, butane, propane, ethane, ethene, etc., related gas compounds and also the presence of high concentrations of secondary contaminants like aluminum, iron, manganese, etc. 

We have recently received additional data identifying additional organic chemicals Butyl benzyl phthalate, Triethylene Glycol and 2 Methoxyethanol among others....

This is an urgent matter to the Agency so completion of your review within the next two months is requested.

While EPA staff found the matter urgent, they also noted that test results were not produced by the agency itself. To get their own data, staffers were mindful about overstepping the agency’s jurisdictional boundaries, which are limited due to fracking industry’s exemptions from the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. In justifying the Dimock investigation, the EPA recognized the issue to be “nationally significant and precedent setting” under the federal Superfund law, as detailed in this Jan. 19, 2012 scoping memo from site coordinater Richard Fetzer.

EPA routinely acts under CERCLA [superfund] to protect public health first while it acts to further define contamination. …

Because the action appears to be nationally significant and/or precedent-setting, the Region will continue to coordinate closely with Headquarters. EPA also will maintain coordination and communications with the PADEP. In taking this action, EPA is aware of and has considered the potential applicability of the natural gas exclusion under CERCLA, the Bensten Amendment under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the exclusion to the definition of the “underground injection” under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). EPA has concluded that this action is appropriate under CERCLA at this time.

The original scope of work, which was later dropped, included determining the source of pollution. In a letter dated Jan. 6, 2012 notifying Cabot attorney Kevin Cunningham of the investigation and a request for records, EPA’s hazardous cleanup director Ronald Borsellino stated the agency was “investigating the source, extent and nature of a release or threatened release of hazardous substances” related to the company’s operations.

Fetzer’s Jan. 29 internal memo sumed it up this way:

What is clear is that this data strongly suggests that hazardous substances have been released and are present in some home well at levels that may present a public health concern. 

Current data does show arsenic and manganese at higher levels than may be typically found in post drilling samples.  Since arsenic and manganese are naturally occurring substances, EPA’s assessment will include comparison of background concentrations present. 

All this qualification, of course, was partly the product of due diligence by the EPA to make its investigation withstand the expected pushback from the state and the industry and to make a case for involvement under Superfund.

States generally are protective of their jurisdiction over shale gas, and this is a critical piece of context. The EPA was conducting a similar investigation in Pavillion, Wyoming, where it found evidence that shale gas development polluted water wells of homes on the Wind River Reservation. Predictably, the agency faced a hostile reception by Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, a shale gas proponent who characterized the federal action as an example of regulatory overreach. (The EPA recently aborted its plans for a peer reviewed study of its work in Pavillion and turned the investigation over to the state.) The EPA faced a similar reaction from Pennsylvania state officials.

On Jan 5, 2012, (then) Pennsylvania DEP director Michael Krancer wrote to EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Gravin, citing Wyoming Governor Mead’s criticism of the EPA’s investigation in Pavillion. In Krancer’s words, that criticism involved:

the technical, scientific and cooperation shortcomings of EPA’s activities with respect to that state regarding Pavilion and there is no need here to catalogue those in his [Mead's] letter. Suffice it to say that we hope the EPA’s efforts here not be marked by the same rush to conclusions and other deficiencies here as it was and continues to be in respect to the Pavilion matter. . I ask that your efforts be guided by sound science and law rather than emotion and publicity.

Krancer copied a group of Pennsylvania legislators on his letter.

All this correspondence shows how the EPA was in a defensive position from the get go, even though its tests later affirmed a persistent problem with arsenic and methane in some wells. In one well, EPA tests found arsenic at nine times the federal safety standards, prompting the agency to call for an alternative source of water  because the levels posed “significant threat to the residents health,” according to an internal memo from Dennis Carney of EPA’s region 3 to his colleagues. (The name of the well's owner was redacted in the file.)

But there is still a missing piece: Why did the agency suddenly drop its investigation without accounting for the source of pollution in Dimock or characterizing the broader groundwater conditions, as it set out to do? The answer has something to do with jurisdictional limits due to the exemptions from federal law. But an overriding element involves Obama’s campaign platform for a second term, when the president was publically and enthusiastically pitching the merits of shale gas and portraying himself as an industry ally. As the campaign heated up in 2012, the EPA investigation could have backfired if held up in the hands of his opponents as evidence that the president is a regulatory zealot. In fact, Cabot Oil & Gas president Dan Dinges wasted no time exploiting this angle in an open letter -- shortly after the company was put on notice by the EPA – which was promptly featured in a report by Mark Drajem for Bloomberg:

EPA’s actions in Dimock appear to undercut the president’s stated commitment to this important resource,” Chief Executive Officer Dan Dinges wrote today in a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson. “EPA’s approach has caused confusion that undermines important policy goals of the United States to ensure safe, reliable, secure and clean energy sources from domestic natural gas.

The EPA said Jan. 19 that it would deliver water to four families in Dimock, where residents say their water has been contaminated during hydraulic fracturing by Cabot. The EPA will also test water at 60 homes to assess whether any residents are being exposed to hazardous substances, the agency said.

Dinges, who also is Cabot’s chairman, said today that the company provided more than 10,000 pages of data to the EPA and there is “no credible evidence” that the water needs further analysis by the federal agency. 

“It appears as though the EPA’s decision is politically motivated and not based on a legitimate desire to address environmental concerns,” the company said in a statement issued with Dinges’s letter.

Dinges was clearly hitting effective buttons. In the world we live in, politics in addition to science is an element of policy making. And here is an example where the direction of science was driven by political forces and interpretations.

Record shows EPA staff warned of Dimock water pollution Report exposes disconnect between results and action

Last week the LA Times reported that the federal EPA dropped an investigation into water pollution associated with shale gas development in Dimock Pennsylvania despite evidence of problems. The reason: political pressure from the industry.

I have been covering the Dimock story since before the EPA investigation began in January 2012. (It provided one of several narrative lines for my book Under the Surface.) The recent LA Times report neatly squares with the story line that has been developing over the last two years. Specifically, the disengagement of the EPA represents a story that works in favor of the extraction of oil and gas from shale through the controversial process of high volume hydraulic fracturing, aka fracking. Yet it’s one that conflicts with industry spin – that the EPA dropped investigations in Dimock and elsewhere because they lack merit or have failed to turn up any problems tying fracking with groundwater contamination.

The story in Dimock goes even deeper than the recent LA times report, and I will get to that shortly.

First a recap: The LA Times report, by Neela Banerjee, cited leaked information from the EPA that showed “staff members warned their superiors that several wells had been contaminated with methane and substances such as manganese and arsenic, most likely because of local natural gas production.” More specifically, Banerjee reports:

The presentation, based on data collected over 4 1/2 years at 11 wells around Dimock, concluded that "methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality." The presentation also concluded that "methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking [hydraulic fracturing] and other gas well work."

This is important and relevant, but not all that much of a shock, given what the record already showed. In July 2013, after months of field study, the EPA publically released 725 pages of testing results from the Dimock investigation and a brief summary. The agency found hazardous substances -- specifically arsenic, barium, manganese and methane -- “at levels that could present a health concern” in the water supply of five of 64 homes – roughly 8 percent. The report concluded that no further action was required because “In all cases the residents have now or will have their own treatment systems that can reduce concentrations of those hazardous substances to acceptable levels at the tap.” In short, households had been notified of the problem, and industry was making provisions to provide filters or alternative water supplies. (My original post can be found here, with a photo gallery of investigation here.)

The mainstream press, encouraged by industry public relations, widely mis-interpreted the EPA press release as a sign that “the water is safe.” Since then, and until now, the Dimock story has faded into background of the fracking debate for the mainstream press, but not for those who have been following the story closely. In addition to raising this issue again, Saturday’s LA Times piece brings to light another critical dynamic: The decision to discontinue the federal investigation in Dimock, and forego the next logical investigative step to trace the pollution to its source, was not made by the rank and file staffers on the ground immersed in the investigation, but by higher-ups in Washington. The LA Times report is consistent with information I have gleaned from various sources in the EPA. It’s also consistent with another decision by the agency’s leadership to abruptly drop an investigation into a link between fracking and ground water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming.

In 2011, the agency issued a summary of its investigation into polluted water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion.  Testing of two deep monitoring wells found:

detection of synthetic chemicals, like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids, benzene concentrations well above Safe Drinking Water Act standards and high methane levels. Given the area’s complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time.

Testing of two drinking wells found:

chemicals consistent with those identified in earlier EPA samples include methane, other petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production. Detections in drinking water wells are generally below established health and safety standards. In the fall of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reviewed EPA’s data and recommended that affected well owners take several precautionary steps, including using alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking, and ventilation when showering. Those recommendations remain in place and EnCana [an operator] has been funding the provision of alternate water supplies.

Yet, facing intense pressure from the industry to butt out, the EPA abruptly decided to shelve plans to push ahead with a peer-reviewed study of the project, and relinquished control of the investigation to state officials supportive of the industry and unenthusiastic for federal involvement in their regulatory affairs. The EPA also dropped a similar investigation in Weatherford Texas in the face of legal threats from the industry.  (More on that here.)

It’s hard to overstate the symbolic importance of all this. EPA involvement represents a special kind of threat to the industry because it could open the door for federal regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. The first governs what goes into the ground, and the second governs the handling and disposal of hazardous waste. The fracking industry enjoys exemptions from both.

In words and action, Obama has shown enthusiasm for shale gas development. It follows that he has directed his EPA not to interfere with an industry that is beginning to spread its wings across the lower 48 states (map here) with the promise of cheap domestic energy. Meanwhile, Obama, whose first term was focused on economic stimulation, is now choosing his environmental battles as he deals with pushback from the industry and its many allies in Congress. A day prior to withdrawing from Wyoming, Obama announced on the world stage that he would seek to regulate coal emissions under the Clean Air Act. The Keystone Pipeline is another bargaining chip that remains on the table.

The LA Times piece may energize the debate over the EPA’s retreat from the fracking issue and shake an air of complacency about states’ ability and willingness to oversee the industry. At the very least, it has provoked some powerful environmental lobbies. Kate Sinding, an attorney for the National Resources Defense Council, wrote in her blog this week:

EPA simply walked away and asked the public and the residents of Dimock to take its word for it. Indeed, the agency did not even mention the word “methane” at all in its press release announcing the end of the investigation. As a result, it was widely reported in the mainstream press that EPA had found the water in Dimock was “safe” to drink (see, for example, here and here). This perception persists among many in the general public.

So now for the part of the story that the LA Times piece does not cover:

After the EPA issued the Dimock results last year, the agency quietly turned the investigation over to a sister agency called the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (There was no mention of this in the EPA press release summarizing the Dimock results, but links to records, along with my report, can be found here). The ATSDR lacks the enforcement muscle of the EPA, but it does advise the agency concerning health impacts from pollution. The Dimock investigation faces an uncertain fate in the hands of the ATSDR, which has a relatively small budget and staff and is notoriously slow.  Has the Dimock investigation been sent there to languish on the shelves of unattended science?

Since the EPA’s file on Dimock landed in the ATSDR office, I have been checking in with agency spokeswoman Bernadette Burden. Last year she said the agency did not have a time frame for the results and their release. Asked for an update this week, she replied “we hope to have it out before the end of 2013.”

It’s a reply that, not surprisingly, offers plenty of political wiggle room.

H20 consumption for fracking exceeds industry projections Lack of reporting requirements discourages clear picture

Workers pump water from a lake to an impoundment
 for fracking in the Fayetteville Shale in Arkansas.
Photo provided by USGS 

The amount of water needed for hydraulic fracturing, like much information we wish we could count on from the industry, is not well documented and varies case by case. But as shale gas plays ramp up throughout the country, evidence suggests actual quantities tend to exceed projections.

Assessing potential for high volume hydraulic fracturing to stress local water supplies is an elusive task. Lack of centralized and uniform reporting requirements leave reporters and researchers to compile trends from piecemeal and sometimes conflicting sources and extrapolations. Last week Forrest Wilder of the Texas Observer, wrestling with this very problem, reported:

If you want to know how much crude oil was produced in Texas in March, the numbers are available to the barrel (50,087,778). If you need a monthly rig count for the Eagle Ford Shale in South Texas or the number of drilling permits issued in 2012 (4,143), the Texas Railroad Commission can provide that information. But if you want to know how much water was used to frack wells for any time period anywhere in Texas’ shale plays… Well, get out your calculator.

Wilder did just that, focusing on a three-county area—Dimmit, LaSalle and Zavala counties—in the southwestern portion of the shale play between San Antonio and Laredo. It’s a region of scarce rainfall and growing prospects of competition for water between burgeoning shale gas development and agriculture. Wilder found that, depending on the source of information, shale gas water consumption in 2012 ranged between 10,000 and 15,000 acre-feet. It’s a range that suggests, if nothing else, an astounding disconnect between industry projections and realistic values for water use. Based on the Texas Observer analysis, in 2012 shale gas developers in the three county-area used between one third and one half of what the Texas Railroad Commission -- relying on informal and unpublished industry estimates -- projected for the entire 24-county Eagle Ford Shale at its peak 10 years from now.

The Observer analysis was based on records by FrackFocus.org, a site that compiles information submitted voluntarily by “participating oil and gas companies.” In Texas, as with other places, some groundwater authorities require companies using water for fracking to obtain a permit, while others do not. Interpretation of the law “depends on which lawyer you talk to,” Slate Williams told Kate Galbraith of the Texas Tribune. Williams, general manager of the Crockett County Groundwater Conservation District in West Texas, asks drillers to report the amount of water they withdraw. “They don’t always do that, but it’s something we ask,” Williams said.

I came across similar contradictions last year raised by Lisa Wright, a fracking opponent trying to reconcile disparities between information from New York state officials and geologist Geoffrey Thyne. According to New York’s draft policy for shale gas development (the Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement or SGEIS), horizontal shale wells use between 2 million and 7 million gallons each. Thyne is a researcher who worked first at the Colorado School of Mines and later at the University of Wyoming. He lost assignments with both institutions amid controversy over his critique of the industry, and figures he provided for Boulder Weekly reporter Shauna Stephenson that indicate a long gas well used between 48 million and 70 million gallons of fluid –  a calculation that was dismissed by the industry as ridiculous and misleading.

In addition to questions about consumption, Wright wondered why there was so much uncertainty about the amount of waste each well produces.  She cited a Stony Brook University study, published last year in the journal Risk Analysis, that found flowback from a given well ranges from between 10 percent and 80 percent of the volumes injected. (Fresh water that remains in the ground is removed from the eco-system – a status known as “consumptive use.” What comes out is laden with salts, unknown chemical mixtures, metals, and radium. Some of it comes from deep gas baring zones, some if it is injected with fresh water, and all of it is exempt from hazardous waste laws.)

Either end of the flowback range offered by Stony Brook study - 10 percent or 80 percent - poses problems that must be recognized and dealt with. Wells that produce little flowback consume relatively high amounts of fresh water. (They also become, in effect, disposal wells.) Those with high volumes of flowback produce corresponding amounts of polluted water. Wright raises a fair question: “With so many eyes on this issue, and with increasing drought conditions-- how can we NOT know this stuff?”

Looking for some clarity, I checked in with Tony Ingraffea, a Cornell University engineering professor and former hydraulic fracturing consultant for the industry, and Terry Engelder, a geologist and industry consultant from Penn State. Tony sees shale gas development as a net loser when ecological costs are factored, while Terry believes it’s a winner. But both agreed that reliable information on water consumption is hard to get at; that there are many variables that can be manipulated to suit interpretations; and volumes will likely tend to increase over time as technology allows for wells that extend greater distances.

A 70-million-gallon frack job (a prospect raised by Thyne) would be logistically improbable if not impossible in Pennsylvania, Engelder said. He cited an example of a frack job in Bradford County, however, that used 8 million gallons to stimulate a mile-long Chesapeake well in Bradford County, and he acknowledged that wells in the future could extend twice that far, thereby using twice the volume. Ingraffea cited some wells in Michigan extending for miles that will use as much as 23 million gallons each.

“Laterals are getting longer everywhere, because many stages are unproductive, and operators have to justify the drilling expense,” Ingraffea said. “Longer laterals, all else being equal, more frac fluid.”

When industry proponents talk about the need for water to develop shale gas, they often put fracking in the context of other ways we use water, like sprinkling lawns, gardens, or golf courses. (See David Blackman’s recent piece in Forbes as the latest example.) The irrigation comparison, however, fails to recognize that watering a lawn and fracking a gas well are two entirely different things. For starters, water on lawns and golf courses is not forever removed from the eco-system, nor is it reintroduced with an array of hazards.

The industry’s water needs are not merely a concern among liberals and greens. As reported recently by Norimitsu Onishi of the New York Times, competition for water in California is raising tensions between farmers and operators as the drilling industry pushes into fertile farm regions in pursuit of unexplored shale gas reserves. And concerns over water lead community leaders in Mora County, a small town in energy-rich New Mexico, to pass the nation’s first countywide ban on hydraulic fracturing. (Hear report by Carrie Jung of KUNM radio here.)

Engelder agreed that competition for water between agriculture and drilling in Texas and elsewhere will become more of a problem if things don’t change. “I think frackers are going to have to learn to use salt water from the Gulf of Mexico in very short order if they wish to continue,” he said. “Otherwise, get 'em all on wind from west Texas and electric vehicles…  We are going to need all the water we can get for AG.”

Areas not prone to drought also have water conflicts. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett, an ardent drilling supporter and opponent of industry regulation, recently accused the Delaware River Basin Commission of hindering the economy and violating property rights by holding off shale gas development in its ecologically sensitive jurisdiction. The agency monitors the drinking-water supply of more than 15 million people, including Philadelphia and half the population of New York City, and prohibits Marcellus Shale drilling in the basin that covers parts four states - New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Delaware – as it considers policy.

 If shale gas develops along its current trajectory, the industry will need more water tomorrow than it does today. In short, we will have more wells with longer laterals tapping shale reserves extending under dozens of states, including many areas where drilling is new and unfamiliar. If the current anti-regulatory attitude persists nationwide, the public will have little control over what it cannot see coming. As the industry has fought hard to preserve federal loopholes that exempt it from Safe Drinking Water Act and hazardous waste laws, it’s a safe bet that it will not be eager to provide accessible information on its water consumption habits. It’s the kind of information that invites regional planning initiatives that pro-drillers characterize as a drag on the industry, even if they are vital to long-term community safeguards.

Obama’s plans for shale gas diminish EPA involvement

It’s no mystery that President Obama is tying the country’s energy future to shale gas development. He articulated this commitment first in his campaign and later in his State of the Union Address. Now his actions show just how supportive his administration is to the industry’s quest to build demand and discourage regulation.

Last month, Obama approved policy for shale gas export terminals – a move the industry needs to capitalize on global markets and buoy prices needed to support aggressive expansion of domestic wells, infrastructure, and exploration.  Those banking on shale gas received more good news last week, when the president, speaking to an international audience from Berlin, announced a federal plan to regulate CO2 emissions from coal. Coal regulations impact shale gas markets, as natural gas is a cheap alternative to coal at power plants. (I won’t get into the broader discussion here on shale gas versus coal as greenhouse gasses, other than to acknowledge there is fierce debate about the wisdom of embracing policy that encourages another generation of fossil fuel extraction.)

The administration’s gas industry-friendly stance, while good for natural gas investors, does not bode well for those hoping the federal government will step up regulations, or at least close loopholes to federal environmental laws. An exemption from the Safe Drinking Water Act allows operators – with no disclosure -- to inject hazardous chemicals into the ground to stimulate well production; and exemptions from federal hazardous waste laws allows the industry to dispose of toxic waste through conventional methods.

Hours after the president announced to the world his proposal to regulate coal emissions, his EPA issued a press release without fanfare stating the agency is dropping a key investigation into a link between fracking and ground water contamination. Consequently, the agency will be turning its probe of groundwater pollution in Pavillion, Wyoming over to the state. It’s hard to overstate the symbolic importance of this. The EPA’s findings in Pavillion –- that fracking could be linked to groundwater pollution -- ran directly counter to claims by the industry that no such evidence exists. The EPA’s decision not to pursue the Pavillion case in the face of industry opposition illustrates how policy is made at the intersection of politics and science.

Obama has made his politics on shale gas clear. So what about the science? It’s mixed, inconclusive, and largely out of the line of public scrutiny because the industry controls it almost exclusively. There are places, however, where groundwater contamination has become so bad around shale gas fields that the EPA has stepped in. Among these places are Pavillion, Wyoming and Dimock, Pennsylvania.

In Pavillion, the agency issued a summary of its investigation into polluted water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in 2011.  Testing of two deep monitoring wells found:

detection of synthetic chemicals, like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids, benzene concentrations well above Safe Drinking Water Act standards and high methane levels. Given the area’s complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time.

Testing of two drinking wells found:

chemicals consistent with those identified in earlier EPA samples include methane, other petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production. Detections in drinking water wells are generally below established health and safety standards. In the fall of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reviewed EPA’s data and recommended that affected well owners take several precautionary steps, including using alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking, and ventilation when showering. Those recommendations remain in place and EnCana [an operator] has been funding the provision of alternate water supplies.

Similarly, analysis of water tests prompted a federal investigation in Dimock in December, 2011. Following tests from the Pennsylvania DEP showing that methane from nearby drilling had polluted wells along Carter Road, officials at the Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry found evidence of elevated levels of various solvents, metals, and glycols that posed “a possible chronic public health threat based on prolonged use of the water” in “at least some” of the Dimock wells. A follow up investigation by the EPA last year found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, and methane in five of 64 water wells.

So those are small but important examples of the science and politics at work. What was the policy outcome?

In Dimock, the EPA determined  “no further action” necessary because the industry, which has denied responsibility for the pollution, has provided alternative drinking water or filtration systems to the affected homes.  The EPA turned its results back over the ATSDR, with no timetable for the release of further analysis.

In Pavillion the EPA was working against the wishes of Encana, the company implicated in the investigation and which has denied responsibility. The EPA was also working against the wishes of the state of Wyoming, where officials were angered by the suggestion that the state’s efforts to control the industry fell short. Hence, the EPA’s announcement last week the was cast in an awkward tone attempting to defend its work while yielding to officials at Encana and the state who wanted the agency to butt out:

While EPA stands behind its work and data, the agency recognizes the State of Wyoming’s commitment for further investigation and efforts to provide clean water and does not plan to finalize or seek peer review of its draft Pavillion groundwater report released in December, 2011. Nor does the agency plan to rely upon the conclusions in the draft report.

The report went on to explain that the agency was working on a broader evaluation of fracking and groundwater. But the status of that, too, remained unclear. According to the press release, the report is expected next year. But an Associated Press report earlier this week said that the EPA report has now been delayed until 2016.

These are all clear signs that the EPA’s investigation into the safety of shale gas development – along with federal regulatory possibilities – have been put on the back burner if not abandoned all together. In the meantime, policing of the national shale gas boom will continue to be left to individual states in the absence of federal baselines, regional planning, and uniform rules. Measures to gauge and control the cumulative impact of fracking and waste disposal on water supplies, and the legacy of abandoned infrastructure for future generations, will be left to faith in the belief that capital markets can adequately protect public health and the environment.

Dimock water problems continue after four-plus years Results of recent cases in fracking zone not yet released

Crews use a service rig in Dimock to diagnose problems
PHOTO VERA SGROGGINS 

DIMOCK, Pa. -- More than four years after the explosion of a residential water well called attention to the problem, Pennsylvania environmental officials are still trying to solve water pollution in this small town that has become infamous for shale gas development.

Recent cases involve two homes in a gas field where the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has banned drilling of new wells in the wake of chronic water pollution tracked to nearby operations of Cabot Oil & Gas. Cabot crews continue to operate a service rig between gas wells and water wells to diagnose problems in an area where the DEP has found dangerous levels of methane flowing into residential water wells near the junction of Carter Road and State Route 3023.

Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the Department of Environmental Protection, said this week that the agency has not determined when the latest round of testing will be released.

Cabot has been cited in the past for various violations that the DEP has linked to problems. Wells providing water to several dozen homes have been taken off line or fitted with filtration equipment to remove gas and other pollution since the water well of Dimock resident Norma Fiorentino exploded on New Year’s Day, 2009.

Although drilling has been banned in a nine-square mile area where problems are the worst, the DEP recently allowed fracking to stimulate production of exisiting wells. Two months ago, DEP officials responded to complaints that drinking water at several homes became turbid after crews fracked nearby natural gas wells.  Subsequent tests showed two water wells serving homes along State Route 3023 contained explosive levels of methane, according to information from the DEP.  Cabot Spokesman George Stark did not return calls for comment. In the past, he has said the problem may be linked to a frozen vent.

In addition to methane, the DEP is testing water samples taken from affected homes for various other contaminants, including metals and chlorides (listed below), which are markers for pollution from gas drilling and production.

With the recent announcement that DEP Chief Michael Krancer is stepping down, the problem will be passed on to the third administration. In 2010, John Hanger, who served as Governor Ed Rendell’s top environmental official, found that shale gas operations had ruined the aquifer serving homes in and around Carter Road. As a remedy, Hanger ordered Cabot to build an $11 million pipeline to restore fresh water to affected homes. After the order, Cabot denied that it was responsible for pollution, and the pipeline order was eventually defeated amid political opposition when Tom Corbett, a drilling supporter, was elected governor.  Last August, Cabot reached an undisclosed settlement with 32 of 36 Dimock families suing for damages related to pollution of water wells.  Other lawsuits are pending.

In an investigation last year, the federal Environmental Protection Agency found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, or methane, in five of 64 water wells – roughly 8 percent. It concluded that the concentrations could pose health risks, but those risks were mitigated by treatment systems drilling companies had installed or planned for the homes. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is now following up with an evaluation of it’s own.

Early this year, the DEP came under fire about how it handles testing at sites suspected of pollution from gas development. In January, Pennsylvania Auditor General Eugene DePasquale announced a review of the agency’s regulation, testing and enforcement program. The intention of the probe, according to a letter from DePasquale to Krancer, is to determine the "adequacy and effectiveness of DEP's monitoring of water quality as potentially impacted by shale gas development activities, including but not limited to systems and procedures for testing, screening, reporting and response to adverse impact such as contamination."

The recurring problem of pollution related to shale gas and related public relations issues will be inherited by Krancer’s successor.

While methane migration is not unique to Dimcok, the rural community has been divided by the issue, and is featured as a case study and focal point of the anti-fracking movement just across the state border in New York, where fracking is on hold pending a more extensive review of environmental and health issues.

What the DEP is testing for in Dimock water wells:

MANGANESE
BARIUM
IRON
STRONTIUM
TDS
CHLORIDE
Hardness
pH
SPC
ALKALINITY
BROMIDE
SUSP SOLID
SELENIUM
ARSENIC
SULFATE
MAGNESIUM
ALUMINUM
CALCIUM
POTASSIUM
LITHIUM
SODIUM
ZINC
TURBIDITY
METHANE
ETHANE
PROPANE

Source: DEP 

Pa. DEP considers fracking in Dimock water pollution case Tainted water wells in no-drill zone, but fracking allowed

Pennsylvania environmental officials are attempting to track the source of explosive levels of methane in two private water wells in a shale gas field in Dimock, Pennsylvania.

That in itself is not especially newsworthy. The small town in northern Susquehanna County has been the focus of state and national investigations since 2009, when gas linked to nearby drilling by Cabot Oil & Gas seeped into the aquifer and caused a water well to explode. It’s significant, however, that the recent problems emerged in the middle of a 9-square mile area where the DEP banned drilling four years ago due to chronic methane migration problems. It’s also significant that the agency allowed fracking to resume at two nearby gas wells.

 EPA technician collects samples at a Dimock home last year
Photo James Pitarresi 

Dimock, population 1,400, was among the first Pennsylvania towns to feel the expectations and impact of the Marcellus Shale rush. Much of the town was leased for shale gas exploration in 2006 through 2008. Since then, a history of problems and complaints have made Dimock a household name for those questioning the role of shale gas extraction in the country’s energy future.

Last August, Cabot Oil & Gas reached an undisclosed settlement with 32 of 36 Dimock families suing for damages related to pollution of their water wells.  Other lawsuits are pending. Due to widely publicized concerns, the federal Environmental Protection Agency began its own investigation last year. After six months of testing, the EPA found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, or methane, in five of 64 water wells – roughly 8 percent. It concluded that the concentrations could pose health risks, but those risks were mitigated by treatment systems drilling companies had installed or planned for the homes. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry is now following up with an evaluation of it’s own.

In recent weeks, investigators, responding to complaints, have found two new cases where methane concentrations in private water wells pose an explosion hazard, said Colleen Connolly, a spokeswoman for the DEP.  The contaminated water supplies are near the Costello and Gesford gas wells. Those wells, drilled into the Marcellus Shale, were fracked last fall, Connolly said.

And this makes the story more than another gas-migration case. The industry has disputed claims that fracking – the use of pressurized chemical solution to break rock and release gas in deep formations – poses a threat to water tables above them. In fact, it has denied that it has ever happened. That denial is at the root of a national controversy that has raised the stakes on the outcome of ongoing investigations by the DEP and the EPA in Dimock and elsewhere.

It is known that methane migration can happen naturally in gas rich zones. It is also known that drilling (apart from fracking) can cause or intensify problems by opening pathways through the aquifer into pressurized zones below. The problem is managed by casing the well bore with cement to seal off the aquifer, a method that is effective but not foolproof.  

Not do be confused with drilling, fracking is done to stimulate the flow of gas after the well bore has been cemented. It’s functionally and technically a separate process from drilling. The industry’s insistence that fracking cannot create pathways for pollution to reach the aquifer has drawn scrutiny in several controversial cases.

An EPA investigation in 2011 found water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion, Wyoming were polluted with synthetic chemicals, glycols, alcohols, methane, and petroleum hydrocarbons “consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids.” The drilling company implicated in the study, EnCana, has denied responsibility, and the industry is challenging the EPA conclusions.

In a lesser-known case, the Ohio Division of Mineral Resources Management concluded that fracking caused an explosion in Bainbridge in 2007. One house was destroyed and 19 other homes were evacuated due to high methane levels.  According to the agency’s investigation, the problem arose when Ohio Valley Energy Systems Corp fracked the well without properly cementing the production casing.  

The most recent problem in Dimock surfaced after a water well near a gas well turned turbid in early February, according to the DEP's Connolly. She declined to disclose the location, but residents report that crews have been working at two affected homes near the intersection of Carter Road and State Route 3023, which are also near gas wells that have been fracked.

Cabot Spokesman George Stark was unavailable for comment today. The company has blamed the problem on a frozen pipe used to vent methane gases, Connolly said.

The water wells have been taken off line, and methane concentrations have fluctuated since the problem began, Connolly said. Regulators have not reached conclusions about the cause of the problem, and they are continuing to monitor the work of Cabot, Connolly said. Cabot contracts Crews were at the site last week with a drilling rig used to service and inspect gas wells.

While there is relatively little documentation associating high volume hydraulic fracking to water pollution -- apart from spills and accidents related to handling fracking chemicals and waste above the surface before and after they are injected into the ground -- risks of methane migration from drilling are relatively well known. In September, 2009, the DEP issued a draft report that found methane migration from gas drilling, had “caused or contributed to” at least six explosions that killed four people and injured three others in Pennsylvania alone over the course of the decade preceding full-scale Marcellus development. The threat of explosions had forced 20 families from their homes. At least 25 other families have had to deal with the shut-off of utility service or the installation of venting systems in their homes. At least 60 water wells (including three municipal supplies) had been contaminated.

What’s riding on the EPA’s water study in Pavillion WY Industry offensive intended to keep federal agency at bay

Technicians collect samples in Pavillion

Let the science decide the debate. Get politics out of it. We hear those directives routinely from politicians and partisans urging people to consider the risks and merits of fracking from one isolated contextual corner or another, or to never mind the broad discussion for now.

The EPA study into ground water pollution in Wyoming represents the latest example over the plasticity of scientific analysis that takes form under the heat and pressure of political forces. It’s about empirical data, what is said about the data, how exactly it is said, what is not said, and control over messages yet to be delivered that is causing confusion and serving political agendas.

The starting point of this thread is the EPA’s investigation into polluted water wells near fracking operations on the Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavillion, Wyoming. The agency issued a summary of findings in late 2011. Testing of two deep monitoring wells found:

detection of synthetic chemicals, like glycols and alcohols consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids, benzene concentrations well above Safe Drinking Water Act standards and high methane levels. Given the area’s complex geology and the proximity of drinking water wells to ground water contamination, EPA is concerned about the movement of contaminants within the aquifer and the safety of drinking water wells over time.

Testing of two drinking wells found:

chemicals consistent with those identified in earlier EPA samples include methane, other petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds. The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production. Detections in drinking water wells are generally below established health and safety standards. In the fall of 2010, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry reviewed EPA’s data and recommended that affected well owners take several precautionary steps, including using alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking, and ventilation when showering. Those recommendations remain in place and EnCana [an operator] has been funding the provision of alternate water supplies.

The study drew fire from industry because of its explicit association of water pollution with fracking and drilling. In the interest of getting a clearer picture, the U.S. Geological Survey did follow up testing, and provided raw data with no interpretation. Not surprisingly, the EPA found that the USGS results verified the EPA’s findings, and the industry seized on inconsistencies between the data sets. The EPA results, and the methodology behind them, have continued to be a prime public target for industry representatives who claim the agency is overzealous and premature in releasing findings yet to be peer reviewed. (The agency released the findings for public comment corresponding to the peer review process.) The drilling company implicated in the EPA study, EnCana, has denied responsibility, and the industry – primarily through the efforts of the industry house organ Energy In Depth -- continues a campaign to discredit the EPA study.

The EPA association between fracking and groundwater pollution was even more newsworthy owing to the industry’s steadfast claims that fracking has never impacted water supplies. When the story broke nationally, it drew proportionately grand political responses. Republican Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, a ranking member of the Senate Committee on Environmental and Public Works, characterized the EPA’s determination as “part of Obama’s war on fossil fuels and his determination to shut down the natural gas production” and “not based on sound science but on political science.”

The issue of the EPA’s study of pollution in Pavallion is fundamentally about scientists trying to track and understand dangerous chemicals flowing in the ground and threatening public health. But it is also about something else. The battle is setting the stage for how the oil and gas industry will or will not be regulated in the future. Oil and gas development is exempt from federal oversight – including both the Safe Drinking Water Act and hazardous waste laws – and the industry wants to keep it that way. So do oil and gas states, which don’t want the federal government meddling in their decisions and control over exploitation of mineral resources within their borders.

Wyoming state officials, including governor Matt Mead, criticized the EPA’s conclusions and pushed for time for the state to debunk the work. In the face of the backlash, the EPA agreed to retest the wells and called on the USGS to conduct parallel tests. In an attempt to keep the political heat on, Energy In Depth last week held forth an internal EPA memo as evidence that the agency findings were misrepresented by press accounts, and some vague sense of scandal.

When the Associated Press and other outlets began breaking the story in early December, 2011, the headlines focused on the news of the day, which was that the EPA report associated the pollution in Pavillion to shale gas production.

EPA Report Links Fracking To Water Pollution… NPR
EPA: Fracking may Cause Groundwater Pollution… USA Today
EPA Implicates Fracking in Pollution at Wyoming state site… Associated Press

This week, Energy In Depth cited an email from Betsaida Alcantara, communications director for the EPA, to a string of her superiors as evidence that the press in fact got the story all wrong. The email shows that, in the wake of the political firestorm caused by the breaking story on Dec. 8 2011, Alcantara told the Associated Press editors that the headline and the word “implicates” was “unnecessarily inflammatory and irresponsible,” and she urged them to soften it.

As a newspaper reporter for 20 years, I have experienced many such situations, and it’s simply another day in the office when government officials grasp for control of a message based on the extent of the political grief it causes them. When public officials start attacking a news report not on factual errors but on the subjective levels of tone and presentation, it’s typically in the interest of damage control. That’s why in this country we generally depend on news from the Fourth Estate rather than from government outlets.

In the end, the memo from the EPA office to the AP editors points out no factual errors with the reportage, and changes nothing in the EPA’s own earlier press release of the Pavilion study, including this critical sentence: “The presence of these compounds is consistent with migration from areas of gas production.” Yet Energy In Depth is using this note from an EPA staffer as an “I told you so.”

If this is telling us anything, though, it’s the strength of political pressures brought to bear on scientists trying to do their work, and the level of noise it introduces into the system at the hands of PR spin from all sides. (I will add that it’s all part of the necessary but often messy First Amendment process by which we govern ourselves in this country.)

What bearing does the Pavillion controversy have on the future? Plenty. The EPA is in the process of reviewing national data from Pavillion and elsewhere, where available, to assess the impact of fracking on groundwater supplies. Its comprehensive report, due out next year, will set the contextual baseline for future discussion about the need for regulatory reform. The Pavillion matter will test the will of the federal government to challenge industry and states who want to preserve the status quo in their pursuit of carbon riches in more than two dozen major shale gas basins spread across the lower 48 states.

EPA officials arrive to investigate water in Dimock, Pa
Photo James Pitarresi 

In the meantime the EPA has been on the retreat in the face of political opposition stoking an anti-regulatory mood by those who portray fracking as a key to economic stimulation and national independence. Last March, the agency dropped a case against Range Resources after staff scientists traced methane contamination of a private water well to nearby shale gas operations. As reported by Energy Wire, agency administrators withdrew the complaint after former Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell intervened on behalf of the company, and Range refused to cooperate with future plans by the EPA to evaluate the impact of shale gas development on water.

In Dimock, Pennsylvania, the EPA found elevated levels of arsenic, barium, manganese, and methane in five of 64 private water wells – roughly 8 percent – near drilling and fracking operations. It concluded that those risks were mitigated by treatment systems installed in or planned for the homes. The mainstream press largely interpreted the EPA’s assessment of Dimock Water as an “all clear” sign, and agency officials made no attempts to dispel that characterization. Meanwhile, the EPA quietly turned the investigation of the water pollution over to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to analysis health impacts.

The parsing of the debate, and what is and is not said, is very much worth paying attention to. The tone coming out from the EPA regional offices tells us something about where Obama is headed with fracking in his second term. It also sets the stage for the person who Obama will choose to succeed Lisa Jackson to head the EPA. In the meantime, there is a wealth of privately-owned science – ranging from water samples to fracking recipes to waste disposal technology -- which will never see public light due to exemptions that enable non-disclosure. And the political hardball will continue. The stakes are high on all sides, so why should we expect anything else?