Still, more than 100 exemptions for natural aquifers have been granted in California, some to dispose of drilling and fracking waste in the state's driest parts. Though most date back to the 1980s, the most recent exemption was approved in 2009 in Kern County, an agricultural heartland that is the epicenter of some of the state's most volatile rivalries over water.
The balance is even more delicate in Colorado. Growth in the Denver metro area has been stubbornly restrained not by available land, but by the limits of aquifers that have been drawn down by as much as 300 vertical feet. Much of Eastern Colorado's water has long been piped underneath the Continental Divide and, until recently, the region was mulling a $3 billion plan to build a pipeline to bring water hundreds of miles from western Wyoming.
Along with Wyoming, Montana and Utah, however, Colorado has sacrificed more of its aquifer resources than any other part of the country.
More than 1,100 aquifer exemptions have been approved by the EPA's Rocky Mountain regional office, according to a list the agency provided to ProPublica. Many of them are relatively shallow and some are in the same geologic formations containing aquifers relied on by Denver metro residents, though the boundaries are several hundred miles away. More than a dozen exemptions are in waters that might not even need to be treated in order to drink.
"It's short-sighted," said Tom Curtis, the deputy executive director of the American Water Works Association, an international non-governmental drinking water organization. "It's something that future generations may question."
To the resource industries, aquifer exemptions are essential. Oil and gas drilling waste has to go somewhere and in certain parts of the country, there are few alternatives to injecting it into porous rock that also contains water, drilling companies say. In many places, the same layers of rock that contain oil or gas also contain water, and that water is likely to already contain pollutants such as benzene from the natural hydrocarbons within it.
Similarly, the uranium mining industry works by prompting chemical reactions that separate out minerals within the aquifers themselves; the mining can't happen without the pollution.
When regulations governing waste injection were written in the 1980s to protect underground water reserves, industry sought the exemptions as a compromise. The intent was to acknowledge that many deep waters might not be worth protecting even though they technically met the definition of drinking water.
"The concept of aquifer exemptions was something that we 'invented' to address comments when the regulations were first proposed," Salazar, the former EPA official, said. "There was never the intention to exempt aquifers just because they could contain, or would obviate, the development of a resource. Water was the resource that would be protected above all."
Since then, however, approving exemptions has become the norm. In an email, the EPA said that some exemption applications had been denied, but provided no details about how many or which ones. State regulators in Texas and Wyoming could not recall a single application that had been turned down and industry representatives said they had come to expect swift approval.
"Historically they have been fairly routinely granting aquifer exemptions," said Richard Clement, the chief executive of Powertech Uranium, which is currently seeking permits for new mining in South Dakota. "There has never been a case that I'm aware of that it has not been done."
In 1981, shortly after the first exemption rules were set, the EPA lowered the bar for exemptions as part of settling a lawsuit filed by the American Petroleum Institute. Since then, the agency has issued permits for water not "reasonably expected" to be used for drinking. The original language allowed exemptions only for water that could never be used.
See what we're tweeting about
12 Comments
Add CommentIn many areas, communities cannot get water from wells because it causes subsidence, so all of their drinking water comes from surface sources. For decades these waters have been polluted by numerous industries, agriculture and even the waste discharge of other communities upstream. Farmers continue to drench our water with fertilizer, herbicides and pesticides
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFederal officials have given these entities permission to pollute water in many places across the country...
And now all the focus seems solely on energy companies.
Well, if aquifers can't afford campaign or SuperPac contributions, what do you expect.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn top of that, I've never seen an aquifer hire a congressional slug as a lobbyist, so what do you expect?
The EPA is misnomer and an empty shell. They have long been a rubber stamp for any kind of environmental assault so long as someone profits from it. EPA has fought to have their authority diminished and have had to be prosecuted to force them to do their job. Counting on the EPA to protect the environment is like counting on republicans to protect lower income families. Well call up the lawyers because this isn't going to be fixed any other way.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't see any proof of contamination of potable aquifers in the article. Only a presumption that they will be contaminated. Why is that assumed?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm the author of the article. To clarify -- There are no assumptions here about contamination, and these are not cases of "risk" of contamination. These are cases in which the EPA has set up a process and overseen the ongoing injection of pollutants. The site permits list the contaminants being injected, the volume, the flow rate, and the aquifer formation receiving them. When the SDWA designates a USDW - an underground source of drinking water -- it has by definition defined it as potable and a viable source.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI personally like a bit of fracking fluids, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, and fertilizers in my drinking water. Especially in the morning. It gives me that extra boost of energy I need to make it through the day. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. Yea, it might kill a kid or older person, but who cares about them anyways.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDestroying tomorrow to cash in today... why is this perverse, self-cannibalizing behavior still tolerated in the United States? How do the dynamics of greed, cronyism, corruption and influence-peddling make destruction of our fresh water supply acceptable? One suggestion: Require insurance coverage on all fracking operations to place in escrow an environmental trust fund sufficient to repair any environmental damage from operations, regardless of cause. Counter greed with responsibility.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe issue not being addressed is that the people who want to dispose of their industrial waste in the underground aquifers do not want to pay to clean up their waste. Instead, they want to pass the cost of cleanup to others, namely the public.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCapitalism at it's best.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo much for the governments interest in its people. You guys are right, we are freakin corporate slaves and always will be because no good man can take the political job without the intent of their own greed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEPA is pathetic and powerless! As long as power and fuel companies are allowed to pay off politicians, this bending over of America will absolutely continue. Make lobbyests illegal in Washington. Make it illegal for politicians to go on "vacations" on the lobbyest's dime. Make the idiots in Congress (opposite of progress) do their own research and actually have their constiuant's best interest in mind for once. But..... probably not.... in America!!!!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWant to see what's in store for poor and underrepresented peoples?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisList to a snake. Grover Norquist. He's running a coup on the U.S. He has never been elected to sh:t.