EPA allows toxic waste injection into drinking water aquifers across the country, probe finds

"Federal officials have given energy and mining companies permission to pollute aquifers in more than 1,500 places across the country, releasing toxic material into underground reservoirs that help supply more than half of the nation's drinking water," Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica reports. Often, the Environmental Protection Agency allows these aquifer exemptions in Western states where gas extraction has been booming, but drought has made people "increasingly desperate for water."

EPA records show that at least 100 drinking water aquifers "have been written off because exemptions have allowed them to be used as dumping grounds," Lustgarten writes. As part of his investigation, Lustgarten tried to find out which aquifers have been polluted. But the EPA "has not even kept track of exactly how many exemptions it has issued, where they are, or whom they might affect," he writes. Exemptions are apparently issued in conflict with the agency's mandate to protect drinking water.

Hundreds of the exemptions are for "lower-quality water of questionable use," Lustgarten reports. But many of them allow "grantees to contaminate water so pure it would barely need filtration, or that is treatable using modern technology." Exemptions are only supposed to be granted if aquifers are too remote, too dirty or too deep to access for drinking water, and applicants for exemption must convince the government that the water isn't being used as drinking water and never will be. However, the EPA has issued exemptions for portions of aquifers already in use, "assuming contaminants will stay within the finite area exempted," Lustgarten reports.

"In Wyoming, people are drawing on the same water source for drinking, irrigation and livestock that, about a mile away, is being fouled with federal permission. In Texas, EPA officials are evaluating an exemption for a uranium mine — already approved by the state — even though numerous homes draw water from just outside the underground boundaries outlined in the mining company's application," Lustgarten reports. The EPA declined to comment, but sent Lustgarten a written statement saying aquifer exemptions were issued responsibly. However, officials say the agency is quietly assembling a task force to "re-evaluate its aquifer exemption policies." (Read more)

Concern spreads about effect on water supplies of natural-gas drilling using hydraulic fracturing

As reported in an earlier blog item, Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica has been investigating environmental impacts of drilling for natural gas using hydraulic fracturing, which can damage water supplies. City and state governments have begun to react to prevent such damage.

"New York City and state officials have expressed concerns in recent months about how plans to drill for gas in the formation called the Marcellus Shale might affect the rivers and upstate reservoirs that feed drinking water to nine million New Yorkers," writes Lustgarten. "The drilling process involves the use of potentially hazardous chemicals and raises issues about how those fluids would be disposed of and how the environment would be protected against spills."

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation has hired a consultant to evaluate the impact of gas drilling. The city water system functions without a filtration plant because its water sources are so clean. The influx of harmful chemicals from gas drilling could require the construction of such a system at an estimated cost of $20 billion, exceeding any potential natural-gas profits, Lustgarten writes. (Read more)

Similar concerns have been raised in New Mexico with the Bureau of Land Management. "New Mexico officials say a gas drilling proposal on federal lands threatens a pristine aquifer that could someday provide drinking water to 15 million households, but the state's protests have met with resistance from the federal office administering the project," Lustgarten reports. "Because the BLM relied on decade-old data in a four-year-old environmental review, neither the Environmental Protection Agency nor the state's environment departments were involved in the decision."

Many environmental concerns with gas drilling are linked to the tremendous amount of deregulation the industry has been granted by the federal government. "The drilling industry is exempted from many major federal environmental statutes, including the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Superfund law and the Toxic Release Inventory, which requires disclosure of hazardous waste," writes Lustgarten. (Read more)

As ExxonMobil buys into natural gas, some drillers adopt more environmentally friendly drilling plans

The chief obstacle to natural gas drilling around the country has seemed to be the environmental concerns associated with the hydraulic fracturing process used to drill gas from deeply buried shales. New, more environmentally friendly drilling methods have begun to catch on, but aren't generally mandated and the industry has been reluctant to implement them nationwide, Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica reports.

"Sometimes environmental considerations aren't the same as the public considerations, and many times the economic considerations don't fit," David Burnett, a Texas A&M associate research scientist and founder of government- and industry-funded Environmentally Friendly Drilling, told Lustgarten. "There could be better management practices used. We have to find a balance."

Among the improvements: replacing some toxic chemicals with "green" fluids, cutting carbon-dioxide emissions by transporting gas through pipes instead of trucks, using natural gas instead of diesel fuel to power drilling rigs, and taking extra steps to seal methane leaks. Still, the most challenging step in making gas drilling more environmentally friendly is dealing with the wastewater, Lustgarten reports. One possible solution is recycling.

Lustgarten, who has been on the fracking story for months, says the industry continues to resist federal or state mandates for their implementation. Industry officials say the new processes are not applicable in every situation and location. "No matter what we do, we are capitalists here in the U.S.," Richard Haut, the Houston Advanced Research Center project director, told Lustgarten. "We do have to look for a balance between environmental issues and development." (Read more)

At least one oil company is making a major bet on the future of natural gas. Monday, ExxonMobil purchased XTO Energy, the nation's second largest gas producer, Jad Mouawad and Clifford Krauss of The New York Times report. "This is not a near-term decision; this is about the next 10, 20, 30 years," Rex Tillerson, the chairman and chief executive of ExxonMobil, told reporters in a conference call. (Read more)

Chesapeake Energy under federal investigation for royalty payment practices

"The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating how Chesapeake Energy pays landowners for the natural gas it drills on their property, according to disclosures made earlier this month in the company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission," reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica. In March, financially-strapped Chesapeake was accused of raising $5 million by cheating landowners out of royalties, and for years landowners have complained of being underpaid.

"In lawsuits filed in several states, Chesapeake has been accused of inflating its operating expenses and then deducting those expenses from the share of income it pays for the right to drill on peoples' land," Lustgarten writes. "Chesapeake has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in judgments and to settle some of these cases."

In 2013, Pennsylvania landowners said their payments were cut by as much as 97 percent, from thousands of dollars a month to less than one dollar, Lustgarten writes. That led to probes from the state's Attorney General.

A ProPublica investigation found "a series of complicated corporate transactions, worth nearly $5 billion, in which Chesapeake sold its pipelines for an inflated price, but then signed long-term contracts to pay the pipelines' new owner exorbitant fees to continue to use them," Lustgarten writes.

"While Chesapeake raised billions through the sale, it committed to repay all of that money and more in fees," Lustgarten writes. "The fees Chesapeake paid to the new company, called Access Midstream Partners, were then charged back to landowners, erasing much of their share of the economic bounty from the surge in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale. At the same time that landowners' gas income dropped, Chesapeake was attempting to raise cash to rescue itself from enormous and mounting corporate debt." (Read more) (Chesapeake Energy map)

Is EPA caving to pressure on fracking probes as Obama pushes gas as balm for climate change?

"Environmentalists see an [Environmental Protection] Agency that is systematically disengaging from any research that could be perceived as questioning the safety of fracking or oil drilling, even as President Obama lays out a plan to combat climate change that rests heavily on the use of natural gas," Abrahm Lustgarten reports for Pro Publica.

In 2011, the EPA said fracking polluted an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., the first time such a claim had been based on a scientific analysis, Lustgarten reports. But the agency has since backed off on its investigation, handing its study over to the state, to be funded by the drilling company. (Casper Star-Tribune photo by Dustin Bleizeffer: Examining water in Pavillion)

That wasn't the only time the agency backed away from a fracking investigation. "Over the past 15 months the EPA closed an investigation into groundwater pollution in Dimock, Pa., saying the level of contamination was below federal safety triggers and abandoned its claim that a driller in Parker County, Texas, was responsible for methane gas bubbling up in residents’ faucets, even though a geologist hired by the agency confirmed this finding," Lustgarten reports. They also "sharply revised downward a 2010 estimate showing that leaking gas from wells and pipelines was contributing to climate change, crediting better pollution controls by the drilling industry even as other reports indicate the leaks may be larger than previously thought, and failed to enforce a statutory ban on using diesel fuel in fracking."

Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, told Lustgarten, “We’re seeing a pattern that is of great concern. They need to make sure that scientific investigations are thorough enough to ensure that the public is getting a full scientific explanation.”

Publicly, the EPA says the events are not related, Lustgarten reports, "but in private conversations, however, high-ranking agency officials acknowledge that fierce pressure from the drilling industry and its powerful allies on Capitol Hill – as well as financial constraints and a delicate policy balance sought by the White House – is squelching their ability to scrutinize not only the effects of oil and gas drilling, but other environmental protections as well." He notes that last year, the EPA's budget was cut 17 percent, to below 1998 levels, and sequestration has forced further cuts. (Read more)

Common method of drilling for gas may pose unregulated threats to underground water

More evidence is being discovered that suggests drilling for natural gas has signiifcant consequences for the environment. While the Environmental Protection Agency and the Bureau for Land Management have downplayed problems, an investigation by ProPublica reaches a different conclusion. The non-profit investigative journalism project "found that water contamination in drilling areas around the country is far more prevalent than the EPA asserts," Abrahm Lustgarten writes. (ProPublica photo)

The problems are closely associated with a process called hydraulic fracturing, the most pervasive method used in natural gas drilling. This process, invented by Halliburton, involves shooting "vast amounts of water, sand and chemicals several miles underground to break apart rock and release the gas," adds Lustgarten. A study done in 2004 by the EPA deemed the practice safe and Congress excluded hydraulic fracturing from federal water law.

In Sublette County, Wyoming, underlain by one of the largest gas fields in the U.S., water contamination appears to be linked to hydraulic fracturing. "In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well . . . and pulled up a load of brown, oily water with a foul smell," writes Lustgarten. "Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people."

So far the investigation by ProPublica has found more than 1,000 cases of pollution documented by courts and state or local governments. Not all involve underground contamination; some deal with surface issues such as "accidental spills and leaky tanks, trucks and waste pits allowed benzene and other chemicals to leach into streams, springs and water wells," Lustgarten reports. Over the last few years, however, a series of contamination incidents have raised new questions about the EPA study and chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, which remain mysterious.

"It is difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of each contamination, or measure its spread across the environment accurately," Lustgarten writes, "because the precise nature and concentrations of the chemicals used by industry are considered trade secrets." Not even EPA knows the composition of the drilling fluids being used, he reports. (Read more)

Drillers hold on to drinking-water quality data; major Marcellus firm fined for ruining water wells

The gas drilling industry claims Duke University research linking drilling to methane contamination in water has no validity because it lacks baseline information for comparison, but such data does exist. "It just wasn't available to the Duke researchers, or to the public," reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica, whose reporting has helped focus attention on the issue.

"The industry is sitting on hundreds of thousands of pre- and post-drilling data sets," said Robert Jackson, one of the Duke researchers, told Lustgarten. " I asked them for the data and they wouldn't share it." The industry has been collecting pre-drilling water samples from private wells since late 2008, when drilling in Dimock, Pa., was linked to water contamination for two reasons, Lustgarten reports: "To get to the bottom of water contamination problems" and "to protect itself when people complain that drilling harmed their drinking water."

Chesapeake Energy, which has tested thousands of private water supplies in the Marcellus Shale, right, "says its findings demonstrate that much of the water was contaminated before drilling began," Lustgarten reports. It remains unclear if Pennsylvania environmental officials have access to the industry data, which leaves the validity and usefulness of industry data uncertain. (Read more, subscription required)

The state today fined Chesapeake more than $1 million "for contaminating private water supplies with methane in Bradford County. Officials called it the single largest state fine ever for an oil or gas operator in the state," The Associated Press reports.

Struggling Chesapeake Energy raised $5 billion through scheme to reduce landowners' royalties

For years energy companies have found creative ways to pay as little as possible in royalties to the owners of the land where they drill. Chesapeake Energy even used this tactic to solve its financial struggles, raising $5 billion by aparently cheating landowners out of their entitled royalties, reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica. He examines how this phenomenon happens, and the ongoing lawsuits as landowners try to regain the money they felt they were owed.

"Boiled down to basics, they worked like this: When energy companies lease land above the shale rock that contains natural gas, they typically agree to pay the owner the market price for any gas they find, minus certain expenses," Lustgarten writes. "Federal rules limit the tolls that can be charged on inter-state pipelines to prevent gouging. But drilling companies like Chesapeake can levy any fees they want for moving gas through local pipelines, known in the industry as gathering lines, that link backwoods wells to the nation’s interstate pipelines. Property owners have no alternative but to pay up. There’s no other practical way to transport natural gas to market." (ProPublica graphic)

"Chesapeake took full advantage of this," he writes. "In a series of deals, it sold off the network of local pipelines it had built in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Louisiana, Texas and the Midwest to a newly formed company that had evolved out of Chesapeake itself, raising $4.76 billion in cash. In exchange, Chesapeake promised the new company, Access Midstream, that it would send much of the gas it discovered for at least the next decade through those pipes. Chesapeake pledged to pay Access enough in fees to repay the $5 billion plus a 15 percent return on its pipelines."

"That much profit was possible only if Access charged Chesapeake significantly more for its services," Lustgarten writes. "And that’s exactly what appears to have happened: While the precise details of Access’ pricing remains private, immediately after the transactions Access reported to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it collected more money to move each unit of gas, while Chesapeake reported that it also paid more to have that gas moved. Access said that gathering fees are its predominant source of income, and that Chesapeake accounts for 84 percent of the company’s business." (Read more)

EPA says water in Dimock, Pa., is safe to drink, but fracking contamination worse than reported

The Environmental Protection Agency announced last week that tests showed water believed to be contaminated by hydraulic fracturing in Dimock, Pa., is safe to drink, perhaps "vindicating the energy industry’s insistence that drilling had not caused pollution in the area," reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica. EPA did not reveal, though, that water samples from the area "contained dangerous quantities of methane gas," and other contaminants, a finding that confirms the agency's initial concerns and complaints from Dimock residents about contamination, Lustgarten reports.

The EPA finding suggests the substances detected don't violate specific drinking-water guidelines, but standards for some of the contaminants don't exist, and experts say the agency should have said it found them. "Any suggestion that water from these wells is safe for domestic use would be preliminary or inappropriate,” said Ron Bishop, a chemist at the State University of New York-Oneonta. Lustgarten reports Dimock residents are trying to "reconcile" EPA findings with private water testing results. Meanwhile, EPA press secretary Betsaida Alcantara said the agency was trying to be "forthcoming" by giving residents the results. (Read more)

Once assumed safe, chemical waste is leaking from injection wells and sometimes polluting aquifers

Over the past few decades, U.S. industries have injected more than 30 trillion gallons of toxic liquid deep into the earth, using broad expanses of the nation's geology as an invisible dumping ground, writes Abrahm Lustgarten, who won awards for his reporting on the fracking industry, which disposes vast amounts of drilling wastewater in such wells.

"No company would be allowed to pour such dangerous chemicals into the rivers or onto the soil," Lustgarten writes. "But until recently, scientists and environmental officials have assumed that deep layers of rock beneath the earth would safely entomb the waste for millennia. There are growing signs they were mistaken. Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant portion of the nation's drinking water." Recent examples include contaminants from oil and gas drilling wells bubbling up, fountain-like, in Oklahoma and Louisiana, as well as in a dog park in Los Angeles.

Thus begins a fascinating and exhaustive piece by Lustgarten that covers "the more than 680,000 underground waste and injection wells nationwide, more than 150,000 of which shoot industrial fluids thousands of feet below the surface. Scientists and federal regulators acknowledge they do not know how many of the sites are leaking. Federal officials and many geologists insist that the risks posed by all this dumping are minimal. Accidents are uncommon, they say, and groundwater reserves — from which most Americans get their drinking water — remain safe and far exceed any plausible threat posed by injecting toxic chemicals into the ground. But in interviews, several key experts acknowledged that the idea that injection is safe rests on science that has not kept pace with reality, and on oversight that doesn't always work."

"In 10 to 100 years we are going to find out that most of our groundwater is polluted," said Mario Salazar, an engineer who worked for 25 years as a technical expert with the Environmental Protection Agency's underground injection program. "A lot of people are going to get sick, and a lot of people may die." The boom in oil and natural gas drilling is only making matters worse, geologists say. (Read more.)

Pennsylvania gas and oil inspectors must get top-level OK to cite drillers in Marcellus Shale

A recent directive by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection requires oil and gas inspectors get approval from top officials before citing violations in drilling of the deep, dense and gas-rich Marcellus Shale.

The department says the rule is aimed at inconsistencies in enforcement, but there is concern "that the state's environmental inspectors can no longer act independently and that regulations could be overridden by the political whims of the state's new governor, Tom Corbett," reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica, the nonprofit, investigative news operation that has won awards for its coverage of the industry. "Corbett has made no secret of his support for drilling and has stated repeatedly that regulatory reforms can help spur job creation."

Corbett's position has former DEP head John Hanger and others questioning the origin of the directive. Hanger told ProPublica, "I do not believe this is coming from John Hines," the department's executive deputy secretary, who will have to consider "each of the hundreds of enforcement actions taken routinely against oil and gas operators in Pennsylvania each month," Lustgarten reports. Hanger, who headed DEP under Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell "and worked to strengthen the state's oil and gas regulations," said he disagrees with the directive because "it represents a break from how business has been done in the department within the Marcellus Shale and within the oil and gas program for probably 20 years."

DEP spokeswoman Katy Gresh told ProPublica, "The initiative is not political, will not interfere with enforcement, and is intended to clear up confusion and inconsistency in the agency's regional offices. The governor's office is not behind this. The governor charged [DEP] secretary [Michael] Krancer with bringing about consistency in his agency. This was a decision made at DEP in order to affect positive change." (Read more)

UPDATE, May 9: DEP Secretary Mike Krancer debunked reports that inspectors were ordered to seek top approval before issuing violations by saying "such approval had not been required" and "that story was blown way out of proportion," Nicholas Kusnetz for ProPublica reports. Katy Gresh, DEP spokeswoman, added in an interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, "The notice of violation process is just as it was. The inspectors don't need pre-approval and that has been communicated to them."

EPA tells Wyo. town the water isn't safe to drink

The Environmental Protection Agency has told residents of a small Wyoming town near extensive natural gas drilling not to drink their water. "The announcement accompanied results from a second round of testing and analysis in the town of Pavillion  by Superfund investigators for [EPA]," Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica reports. "Researchers found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols and methane in wells and in groundwater. They also confirmed the presence of other compounds that they had tentatively identified last summer and that may be linked to drilling activities."

"Last week it became clear to us that the information that we had gathered was going to potentially result in a hazard -- result in a recommendation to some of you that you not continue to drink your water," Martin Hestmark, deputy assistant regional administrator for ecosystems protection and remediation with the EPA in Denver, told a crowd of about 100 gathered at a community center in Pavillion (pop. 174) Tuesday night. "We understand the gravity of that." EnCana, the oil and gas company that owns most of the wells near Pavillion, will "contribute to the cost of supplying residents with drinking water, even though the company has not accepted responsibility for the contamination," Lustgarten writes. (Read more)

"What I believe is we need to find the source. We need to get this shut down now before it just keeps spreading," Pavillion-area resident Louis Meeks told Dustin Bleizeffer of the Casper Star-Tribune. EnCana officials at the meeting refused to connect the water quality with drilling operations. "While there's been a full year of additional testing, the science remains inconclusive," EnCana spokesman Randy Teeuwen told Bleizeffer. He said the EPA's findings "further confirms there is bad water in the area. But we've known that for a long time. It still does not point to oil and gas operations." (Read more)

Study: Brine in Marcellus Shale could migrate upward, so drilling fluids might, too

A new study has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids naturally found below Pennsylvania's natural-gas fields could be seeping upward into residents' drinking water. The findings suggest that drilling waste and chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing "could migrate in ways previously thought to be impossible," Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica reports. (Getty Images photo by Spencer Platt: Gas drilling in South Montrose, Pa.)

Duke University and California State Polytechnic University researchers tested drinking-water wells and aquifers in northeastern Pennsylvania and found that water had mixed with brine that closely matches brine found in the Marcellus Shale in some samples. No drilling chemicals were found in the samples, and there was no correlation between where the natural brine was found and where drilling occurs. But, Lustgarten notes, its presence and finding that it had moved over thousands of vertical feet "contradicts the oft-repeated notion that deeply buried rock layers will always seal in material injected underground through drilling, mining or underground disposal."

The same Duke researchers found last year that methane gas was more likely to leak into water supplies in places adjacent to drilling. This is the second recent study finding that geology surrounding the Marcellus Shale region could allow contaminants to migrate more than previously expected. The other study, published in Ground Water in April, used modeling to predict that contaminants could reach the surface within 100 years. (Read more)

Drillers in N.Y. to tell state the chemicals they use to fracture rock; bills filed to require it across U.S.

Natural-gas drillers have agreed to give New York state regulators a list of the chemicals used in fracturing underground rock formations to release gas, reports Tom Wilber of the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin. "Industry officials have long resisted demands by activists to make the information public because they consider it a trade secret," Wilber notes. (Read more)

Official studies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Colorado have concluded that hydro-fracturing has damaged water supplies, reports Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica., an independent, nopn-profit news site. Geochemist Anthony Gorody of Houston's Universal Geosciences Consulting told Lustgarten that the Colorado study was "junk science," and that pollution cases "are like plane crashes -- the extent tends to be fairly limited. I do not see any pervasive impact."(Read more)

Drilling has long been linked to water pollution, but the issue of deep gas drilling has risen as companies prepare to tap largely undrilled reserves such as the Marcellus Shale that runs from New York to far eastern Kentucky. Members of the U.S. House from New York and Colorado have introduced legislation to require disclosure of the ingredients.

Lax rules for disposal of drilling waste lead to injection of other toxic materials into the earth

One of the trucks, after it was enveloped by
flames fed by fumes from injection-well waste.
(Chemical Safety Board photo)

In January 2003, two tanker trucks exploded, killing three workers after fumes from what was supposed to be waste saltwater from injection wells ignited and burned in Rosharon, Tex. What the workers were really unloading, to be buried deep inside the earth, were thousands of gallons of volatile materials, including benzene and other flammable hydrocarbons. "What happened that day at Rosharon," explains ProPublica reporter Abrahm Lustgarten, "was the result of a significant breakdown in the nation’s efforts to regulate the handling of toxic waste."

"The site at Rosharon is what is known as a 'Class 2' well," Lustgarten writes. "Such wells are subject to looser rules and less scrutiny than others designed for hazardous materials. Had the chemicals the workers were disposing of that day come from a factory or a refinery, it would have been illegal to pour them into that well. But regulatory concessions won by the energy industry over the last three decades made it legal to dump similar substances into the Rosharon site -- as long as they came from drilling. Injection wells have proliferated over the last 60 years, in large part because they are the cheapest, most expedient way to manage hundreds of billions of gallons of industrial waste generated in the U.S. each year.''

ProPublica has analyzed records summarizing more than 220,000 well inspections conducted between late 2007 and late 2010, including more than 194,000 for Class 2 wells. This most recent installment of by the independent, nonprofit news agency on U.S. injection wells had reporters examining federal audits of state oversight programs, interviewing dozens of experts and exploring court documents, case files, and the evolution of underground disposal law over the past 30 years. The report is exhaustive and includes several links showing that fundamental safeguards are sometimes being ignored or circumvented by use of the Class 2 rules. (Read more) For a state-by-state count of unauthorized, overpressurized and leaking injection wells, go here.

In Wyoming aquifer, EPA finds a fracking chemical

Two wells drilled by the Environmental Protection Agency into a Wyoming aquifer "where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water . . . contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing," Abrahm Lustgarten reports for ProPublica, the independent investigative news operation that has won prizes for its reports on fracking.

EPA "did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution," Lustgarten reports, adding that the agency "has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination [of water wells]  and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing. Still, the chemical compounds the EPA detected are consistent with those produced from drilling processes, including one -- a solvent called 2-Butoxyethanol (2-BE) -- widely used in the process of hydraulic fracturing." (Read more)

EPA draft tying fracking, underground pollution is likely turning point in debate, ProPublica says

For the first time, the Environmental Protection Agency has linked hydraulic fracturing and underground water pollution by concluding contaminants found in a Pavillion, Wyo. aquifer were caused by natural-gas well drilling. EPA officials said in a 121-page draft report yesterday that"the presence of synthetic compounds … and the assortment of other organic components is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field" in Wyoming.

ProPublica, the nonprofit investigative news agency, reports the findings will likely signal a turning point in the debate about whether or not fracking causes water pollution and will likely shape regulations in the Marcellus Shale region in Appalachian states, for example. Writers Abrahm Lustgarten and Nicholas Kusnetz also report EPA's findings "directly contradict longstanding arguments by the drilling industry for why the fracking process is safe," including the belief that hydrologic pressure forces fluids down, deep geologic layers are a barrier that prevents chemicals from moving toward the surface, and problems with barriers around gas wells aren't connected to fracking.

The report set off what will likely become a heated political debate in Congress as legislators consider how to better regulate the industry. After a phone call with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, whose office last year challenged the EPA investigation of Pavilion claiming the agency was biased, told colleagues the draft report is "offensive." (Read more)

In another first for monitoring of gas drilling, Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has asked 99 Marcellus Shale drilling and development companies to submit reports on air pollution. The reports will be used in a comprehensive three-year inventory of air pollutants required by EPA. Reports will come from companies involved in all phases of gas drilling, production, transmission and processing. (Read more)

As Pa. plans to regulate gas-well salt discharges, industry fights federal law on hydraulic fracturing

Last fall, the drinking-water source for more than 300,000 people was contaminated with high levels of salt as a result of discharges from natural gas drilling in Pennsylvania. Now, the state Department of Environmental Protection is seeking regulations on salt discharges from the practice, Rebecca Renner reports for Environmental Science & Technology.

More than 500 deep natural-gas wells have been permitted in the state so far, as part of the rapid development of the Marcellus Shale, which lies about a mile underneath Pennsylvania and parts of New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Penn State geologist Terry Engelder estimates it is the third-largest natural-gas field in the world. Its development has been made possible by advances in high-pressure, chemically enhanced hydraulic fracturing of the shale, which can release compounds like metal and sulfides that were trapped, along with chemical byproducts. Wastewter can be treated, but certain elements such as salt dissolve so quickly and easily in water that removing them is difficult and time-consuming.

Jeanne VanBriesen, a water engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, told Renner more information is needed before tapping into Pennsylvania’s natural-gas supply can be called safe: “It’s likely that drilling is the source [of high compound levels], because the Marcellus Shale is a marine formation with high chloride and bromide, and bromide is low in abandoned-mine drainage. But we need to do the research.” (Read more)

Current information on the environmental effect of hydraulic fracturing is fragmented, and oil and gas companies appear to be using old, untimely reports to fight a proposed federal law regulating it. Abrahm Lustgarten of ProPublica writes that one industry report claimed state regulations for drilling and fracturing "are adequately designed to directly protect water," but then revealed that only four states require regulatory approval before hydraulic fracturing begins. The author of the report also said encasing wells in cement is critical to protecting water, but regulations on that practice also vary from state to state.

The misleading information has some environmentalists, like Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst for the Natural Resources Defense Council, questioning the industry's credibility. Oil and gas companies say compliance with new regulations could cost $10 billion, and lose the federal government as much $1.2 billion in revenue at the same time. "We don't think the system is broke, so we question the value of trying to fix it with a federal solution," Richard Ranger, a senior policy analyst at the American Petroleum Institute, told ProPublica in May. "So proceed with caution if you are going to proceed with regulating this business because it could make a very significant difference in delivering a fuel that is fundamental to economic health." (Read more)

Much rural reporting in that recognized by annual awards from Society of Environmental Journalists

The 2009-2010 winners for ninth annual Awards for Reporting on the Environment, given by the Society of Environmental Journalists, include several of rural interest that swept the investigative-reporting category. Charles Duhigg's "Toxic Waters" series for The New York Times won first place; read our previous coverage of the series here. Abrahm Lustgarten, Joaquin Sapien and Sabrina Shankman of ProPublica won second place for their series of stories on the risks of natural-gas drilling. You can read coverage of that series here. Third place went to Ron Seely of the Wisconsin State Journal for his series "Who's Watching the Farm?" It "took on the big factory farm lobby, exposing weaknesses in government regulation and enforcement that are putting important water resources — and the citizens who rely upon them — at risk," SEJ said.

Kera Abraham of the Monterey County Weekly received first place honors in the Small Market Print Reporting category for the series "Green vs. Green: Environmentalists Duke It Out." You can read her stories about both sides of various environmental debates here, here and here. Other winners of rural interest included reports on coal: The documentary "Coal: Dirty Past, Hazy Future," from Michigan Public Radio and The Environmental Report, which won second place in the Beat/In-Depth Radio Reporting category, and the two-part series "Powering a Nation: The Coal Story" from Sara Peach, Jenn Hueting, Monica Ulmanu, Chris Carmichael of the University of North Carolina, which won the Student Reporting category. (Read more)

ExxonMobil says to disclose fracking fluids; N.Y. gets strict on NYC watershed, speeding review

The largest oil company has joined the list of those who think it's a good idea to disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing. ExxonMobil said in a statement filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission that disclosing the chemicals "would ease concerns about potential contamination" from fracking, which involves pumping water, chemicals and sand under high pressure into formations to break up the rock and release natural gas, Katie Burford of The Durango Herald in Colorado reports. Some companies are resisting the push for disclosure because they say it would put them at a competitive disadvantage.

"ExxonMobil supports the disclosure of the identity of the ingredients being used in fracturing fluids at each site," the company said in the statement. "While we understand the intellectual property concerns of service companies when it comes to disclosing the proprietary formulations in their exact amounts, we believe the concerns of community members can be alleviated by the disclosure of all ingredients used in these fluids."

Bruce Baizel, staff attorney for the Durango-based Oil & Gas Accountability Project, told Burford that ExxonMobil's decision was a significant step, and predicted that once chemicals were disclosed, companies would start using greener alternatives. ExxonMobil announced its deal to acquire Texas natural gas company XTO Energy for $31 million in December. The merger reportedly includes an escape clause that would invalidate the deal if fracking is banned or becomes no longer commercially viable, Burford writes. (Read more)

Meanwhile, New York state officials have taken New York City's water-supply zone out of the review process for fracking the Marcellus Shale in that state. "Energy companies will be required to undergo a separate and exhaustive review for each well they propose to drill and hydraulically fracture inside the area, a hurdle that may amount to a de facto ban," Abrahm Lustgarten writes for ProPublica. "But it also removes a significant political and scientific obstacle to completing the two-year statewide review process, paving the way for drilling to proceed across much of the rest of the state as soon as next spring." (Read more)