Posted on 11/11/2011 8:12:03 AM PST by chessplayer
As the country awaits results from a nationwide safety study on the natural gas drilling process of fracking, a separate government investigation into contamination in a place where residents have long complained that drilling fouled their water has turned up alarming levels of underground pollution.
A pair of environmental monitoring wells drilled deep into an aquifer in Pavillion, Wyo., contain high levels of cancer-causing compounds and at least one chemical commonly used in hydraulic fracturing,
(Excerpt) Read more at minyanville.com ...
I would also ask if there had been any previous tests on the wells before the public complaints. I have well water and if my water became foul I would get it tested immediately.
And to add a side note, what ever became of all that contamination of the Yellowstone River from the pipeline rupture a year that the Obamao Administration is using as fodder to demagogue the Keystone XL Pipeline?
You have no clue how drilling is conduced by Encana in the Pavillion field. In fact you have no clue how any kind of drilling is conducted, yet you keep trying to inform those of us who have been in this industry for over 30 years, of “facts” that you cannot explain for yourself. Especially to those of us who have drilled several of those wells for Encana in the area you so ignorantly are citing.
ping
"The information released yesterday by the EPA was limited to raw sampling data: The agency did not interpret the findings or make any attempt to identify the source of the pollution. From the start of its investigation, the EPA has been careful to consider all possible causes of the contamination and to distance its inquiry from the controversy around hydraulic fracturing."
THIS INFORMATIVE LINK is from a detailed 2009 article.
http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/193087-house-gop-wants-massive-drilling-expansion-to-fund-infrastructure-
***If there was no human underground activity whatsoever, would those cancer causing chimicals (CCC) still show up?****
My in-laws bought some property down in centeral Arkansas that had a gas well drilled on it years before. The well caught on fire when drilled and all those hillbillies thought they had drilled into HELL and the devil was coming out to get them! No one gave rights to drill there for decades.
Everyone used a hand dug shallow well but the well was later abandoned when someone bought the land accross the road and put in a septic tank which polluted all the shallow wells around.
The deep wells drilled after that had a sheen and smelled of oil yet their had been no fracking anywhere in the area.
As a side note, East of AZTEC, NM, which has thouands of gas wells, there was an attempt to use an underground nuclear blast to fracture the formations (Operation Gasbuggy). It worked, but all the gas was now radioactive and so they abandoned the project.
It’s a shame that an agency which was created to help cut through the morass of interstate lawsuits about interstate migrations of pollution, real or alleged, instead turns itself into Yet Another Political Football. We did not get a wise Overlord of National Natural Resources, but another gaggle of sellouts to hyper green environuts. So if they do find something that’s causing a genuine problem to people, they look like the boy who cried wolf. And they wish nightmares on hapless property owners by deeming historically dry areas to be wetlands and claiming the courts have no say. I wouldn’t trust anyone who drags in a report from the EPA without some independent proof.
If the water in question is contaminiated, how did that happen?
Some painter dumped a few cans of solvent on the ground and it seeped in, as one possibility.
The devil came down to... Arkansas?
Actually, there are far too many that believe that.
I’m from the government (the EPA) and I’m here to check your RADON.
****(remember that one?)****
Yep. When I bought the old airy house I live in now, my brother-in-law (If you know him he probably owes you money) came to me all wide eyed and said...”Are you going to have your house tested for radon”?
I said “NO! It is a waste of time”.
My BIL is a hypocondriact who would not eat apples because of media induced Alar scare. His mama, my Mother-in-law, was the same way, scared of everything the media said.
I would guarantee you that the backyards of most rural (and maybe even non-rural)Americans would be declared Superfund sites by the EPA from all of the used motor oil and solvents from house paintings dumped in the ground.
I think we’d have to know more about the mix of stuff discovered in the water before we could discern between an actual frack-related problem and some EPA boys crying wolf about an unrelated matter. If it turns out that fracking related shaking allowed somebody else’s ground pollution (not fracking compound) to get into the water, who really do you blame? To take the high road, if there is any truly serious scientific question about fracking activity having had a part in it, I think the fracking company should fix or bypass the wells anyhow, without the need for a morass of lawsuits, but this is a question of policy, not of technology.
Isn't that cute?
Obummer, the enviros and the epa will be able to use this as their single bullet method to shut down all drilling nationwide, since every single well drilled has to be fracked.
This is the only way they can do it nationwide as they cannot control drilling on private land, only federal lands.
How else but to save the countries water?
Even so, biodegradation over a few decades should eat up most of the toxics from common “household hazardous waste” backyard pollution.
Ever wonder why there aren’t little hills of powdered rubber along the sides of highways, representing what has gotten worn off of vehicle tires? Mother Nature has digested it through her microbes, and turned it into that awful global warming carbon dioxide and water.
Water supply regulations are handled by state and local health departments. Some aquifers are just not suitable for potable water because of geologic conditions. And the EPA doesn’t do a damn thing that I know of to protect local water supplies. We’ve long had hydrofracturing guidelines in our state as some geologic formations need to be “fracked” to produce enough water for domestic use. All said it is not the EPA that is protecting you on the local /state level.
If what you say is true, I wouldn’t be surprised if the EPA doesn’t “spike” some groundwater wells with toxins. After all, it is job security for them with all the GOP grandstanding about getting rid of the EPA.
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