POISONED WATER?: Louis Meeks's well water contains methane gas, hydrocarbons, lead and copper, according to the EPA's test results. When he drilled a new water well, it also showed contaminants. The drilling company Encana is supplying Meeks with drinking water.
Image: © Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
Federal environment officials investigating drinking water contamination near the ranching town of Pavillion, Wyo., have found that at least three water wells contain a chemical used in the natural gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing. Scientists also found traces of other contaminants, including oil, gas or metals, in 11 of 39 wells tested there since March.
The study, which is being conducted under the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund program, is the first time the EPA has undertaken its own water analysis in response to complaints of contamination in drilling areas, and it could be pivotal in the national debate over the role of natural gas in America’s energy policy.
Abundant gas reserves are being aggressively developed in 31 states, including New York and Pennsylvania. Congress is mulling a bill that aims to protect those water resources from hydraulic fracturing, the process in which fluids and sand are injected under high pressure to break up rock and release gas. But the industry says environmental regulation is unnecessary because it is impossible for fracturing fluids to reach underground water supplies and no such case has ever been proven.
Scientists in Wyoming will continue testing this fall to determine the level of chemicals in the water and exactly where they came from. If they find that the contamination did result from drilling, the placid plains arching up to the Wind River Range would become the first site where fracturing fluids have been scientifically linked to groundwater contamination.
In interviews with ProPublica and at a public meeting this month in Pavillion’s community hall, officials spoke cautiously about their preliminary findings. They were careful to say they’re investigating a broad array of sources for the contamination, including agricultural activity. They said the contaminant causing the most concern – a compound called 2-butoxyethanol, known as 2-BE – can be found in some common household cleaners, not just in fracturing fluids.
But those same EPA officials also said they had found no pesticides – a signature of agricultural contamination – and no indication that any industry or activity besides drilling could be to blame. Other than farming, there is no industry in the immediate area.
In Pavillion, a town of about 160 people in the heart of the Wind River Indian Reservation, the gas wells are crowded close together in an ecologically vivid area packed with large wetlands and home to 10 threatened or endangered species. Beneath the ground, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, the earth is a complex system of folded crusts containing at least 30 water-bearing aquifer layers.
EPA officials told residents that some of the substances found in their water may have been poured down a sink drain. But according to EPA investigation documents, most of the water wells were flushed three times before they were tested in order to rid them of anything that wasn’t flowing through the aquifer itself. That means the contaminants found in Pavillion would have had to work their way from a sink not only into the well but deep into the aquifer at significant concentrations in order to be detected. An independent drinking water expert with decades of experience in central Wyoming, Doyle Ward, dismissed such an explanations as "less than a one in a million" chance.
See what we're tweeting about
8 Comments
Add CommentI would expect SciAm to know that the information in this story comes from a news release from Earthwatch, and not from any direct statements from EPA. In fact, the news release claims in its headline that EPA has confirmed such contamination, and then in the first sentence says that EPA is conducting a study. Kind of like saying someone is guilty before they are proven innocent -- backwards. I would also expect SciAm to know that this area of Colorado has experienced many contamination episodes from this chemical not related to drilling, but to other industrial contamination in the area. In fact, this substance is so common, EPA may never be able to determine where its actually come from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSciAm is really hurting its credibility as a scientific source by continually reprinting and reposting the work of Mr. Lustgarden, who is not a scientist. His continual efforts to confuse the already confusing world of natural gas extraction become more desperate with each installment, as his reporting is debunked by more knowledgeable people. Please stop tarnishing your reputation .
I would suggest a way to track the fracturing fluids involvement in water contamination. Just mandate that any fracturing fluid must be 'painted' with artificial substances, for example some radionuclides, in low, but detectable quantities. Now if any are found in water or in other wrong places, then it's clear where did they come from.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand I think that indirect evidence can be enough too when there is no other reason for changes in water. As an example if I would dig an 100 foot deep hole in my lot and would need to pump out a lot of water to keep it empty of rising water, I bet anybody would blame me for the drying well of a neighbor. If something going into ground or coming out of it in one lot does appear in the lot next to it, it should be no rocket science to ask and verify whether that activity is the culprit. Of course, it will not help if they don't reveal what they are using. But then they should take the burden when scientists have to use more expensive means to find out what those substances are.
This article was based on entirely original news reporting. I am the author, and am an investigative reporter who has been covering this issue in depths for the past 18 months. In the course of that reporting I have made several trips to Wyoming and other similarly affected areas, interviewing most of the people directly involved. I was present at the EPAs meeting on August 11 in Pavillion, WY, and followed up on that meeting with private conversations with officials from Wyomings Department of Environmental Quality and numerous Environmental Protection Agency officials both in Denver and in Washington, DC.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt should also be noted that Rita McConnell is employed as a contractor for EXCO Resources, a Dallas-based energy company involved in natural gas exploration in Pennsylvania, one of the states in which my reporting has documented extensive methane water contamination related to drilling.
I would have to say that Rita has made it an art form to distort facts which is unfortunate...I have seen her postings in numerous places....the bottomline is the "cat is out of the bag" and it is getting increasingly harder for big gas corps to cover up their dirty secrets...critical mass will hit sooner than later and the real truth about how dirty natural gas really is will be common knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would have to say that Rita has made it an art form to distort facts which is unfortunate...I have seen her postings in numerous places....the bottomline is the "cat is out of the bag" and it is getting increasingly harder for big gas corps to cover up their dirty secrets...critical mass will hit sooner than later and the real truth about how dirty natural gas really is will be common knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would have to say that Rita has made it an art form to distort facts which is unfortunate...I have seen her postings in numerous places....the bottomline is the "cat is out of the bag" and it is getting increasingly harder for big gas corps to cover up their dirty secrets...critical mass will hit sooner than later and the real truth about how dirty natural gas really is will be common knowledge.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't it a fantastic thing when a journalist seeks to make clear the means by which he ascertained his information. It demonstrates true journalistic integrity, something we just don't have enough of these days.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNaturally, this Rita person was not going to reveal her obvious conflict of interest when she posted her politically-slanting information. It is a sad thing that the scientific community has to fight through this garbage in the process of broadening mankind's understanding of reality. What will Rita and Co try next I wonder.
And while I'm at it, what an ironically vindicating thing to learn that the environmental groups Rita seeks to whimsically portray as...whatever it is she's hoping they'll look like...are more closely following actual science than industry. As if that was a surprise really.
How far apart are the fresh water aquifer & the formation that was frac'd? Has anyone tested the casing integrity of the oil/gas wells?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the formations are within a couple of hundred feet of each other, I suspect science could link the incidence to frac communication. If they are more than 1,000' apart then it is physically impossible for that to have occurred.
The most likely case of fresh water contamination is from either surface polution or failure of the steel casing & cement that was supposed to be properly set to isolate the fresh water from the wellbores.