EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination Synthesis

            The article “EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination” discusses whether or not fracking is linked to the contaminants being found in Wyoming’s water.  The Environmental Protection Agency recently conducted a study that found “at least 10 compounds known to be used in frack fluids” in the water around Pavillion, Wyoming.  Glycol ethers were found in the water which are a direct product of ground water and hydraulic fracturing fluids.  Reports of foul smelling water arose in the mid-1990s and continued to progressively get worse until 2004.  By 2004 there were also complaints of brown water after gas wells were fracked.  In 2008, the EPA found traces of contaminants in the drinking water and the suspicions were confirmed in 2010.  Due to the contaminants recently found health officials warned residents to drink their water and to ventilate their homes while bathing.  There was methane found in the water samples which could cause explosions.  The EPA drilled two water wells to 1,000 feet to substantiate their finds.  In the wells the EPA found benzene and 2 Butoxyethanol which are both used in fracking.  No specific conclusions have been made because the EPA is considering all the possible causes for the contamination such as agriculture, drilling, and old pollution from waste pits.  The EPA confirmed that the 33 abandoned oil and gas waste pits were the source of contamination for at least 42 private wells in Pavillion, Wyoming.  Only one 2 Butoxyethanol contaminant was found in one sample in one out of three labs.  Therefore, EnCana does not agree that it should be constructed as fact that the 2 BE found was caused by fracking since the result was not replicated.  Some of the findings in the report challenge longstanding arguments by the drilling industry of how fracking is safe.  Some arguments are that the hydrologic pressure would naturally force fluids down and not up, that deep geologic layers provide a watertight barrier that prevents the movement of chemicals towards the surface, and that the problems with the cement and steel barriers around gas wells are not connected to fracking.  Investigators found that the cement barriers had been weakened and separated from the well above the area that fracking took place.  They also found that hydrologic pressure had pushed fluids from deep geologic layers towards the surface.  The EPA’s findings are currently under peer and public review and are hoped to be finalized by the Spring.  Senator James Inhofe, a Republican from Oklahoma, finds the EPA’s report “offensive.”  Last year, he challenged the EPA’s findings saying they were bias.