Long awaited EPA study says fracking polluted drinking water [View all]

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Frack Off ‏@Frack_Off Jun 5
Long awaited EPA study says #fracking polluted drinking water http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-pollutes-drinking-water/ …

In 2010, Congress commissioned the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to study the impact of fracking on drinking water. The U.S. EPA released its long-awaited final draft of its report today, assessing how fracking for oil and gas can impact access to safe drinking water. The report refuted the conclusion arrived at by the U.S. EPA’s 2004 study that fracking poses no threat to drinking water, a conclusion used to exempt the fracking process from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The report found that fracking for shale oil and gas has not led to “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States,” but said fracking could contaminate drinking water under certain conditions, such as when fluids used in the process leaked into the water table, and found isolated cases of water contamination...

It noted the reason for that concern: “Millions of people live in areas where their drinking water resources are located near hydraulically fractured wells. While most hydraulic fracturing activity from 2000 to 2013 did not occur in close proximity to public water supplies, a sizeable number of hydraulically fractured wells (21,900) were located within 1 mile of at least one PWS source (e.g., infiltration galleries, intakes, reservoirs, springs and ground water wells). Approximately 6,800 sources of drinking water for public water systems, serving more than 8.6 million people year-round, were located within 1 mile of at least one hydraulically fractured well. An additional 3.6 million people obtain drinking water from private water systems....

Study based on voluntary disclosure from the industry

The study, nearly 1,000 pages long, presents some of the copious research being done on the impacts of fracking and identifies the ways in which fracking operations could affect drinking water supplies. And while the EPA did warn that lack of complete information on these operations as well as changes in the industry limited a complete assessment of these impacts, it identified “potential mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing could affect drinking water resources.”

The EPA notes in its executive summary that data used in its assessment of wells came from FracFocus, a publicly accessible website managed by the Ground Water Protection Council and the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission where oil and gas production well operators may disclose information voluntarily or pursuant to state requirements about the ingredients used in hydraulic fracturing fluids at individual wells.

As a result of this limited and voluntary information provided by oil and gas companies for the EPA study, Wenonah Hauter, executive director of Food & Water Watch, pointed out, “The study released today falls far short of the level of scrutiny and government oversight needed to protect and health and safety of the millions of American people affected by drilling and fracking for oil and gas. It is outrageous that the oil and gas industry refused to cooperate with the EPA on a single ‘prospective case study.’ This reveals the undue influence the industry has over the government and shows that the industry is afraid to allow careful monitoring of their operations.”

Lauren Pagel, policy director at Earthworks, agrees. “Industry data and independent studies tell us that 1 – 6 percent of unconventional fracked wells fail immediately, meaning tens of thousands of failed wells litter our country,” she said. “Despite industry’s obstruction, EPA found that fracking pollutes water in a number of ways. That’s why industry didn’t cooperate. They know fracking is an inherently risky, dirty process that doesn’t bear close, independent examination.”


read more: http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-pollutes-drinking-water/


Image credit: US EPA