EPA - Wyoming Shenanigans

Update

November 14, 2016: cased closed (?). Wyoming DEQ finds no fracking fluids in groundwater.  I'm so sick of this subject, I want to throw up.

June 19, 2013: the EPA closes the books on this one. The EPA says it will turn over the "investigation" to the state of Wyoming.

January 11, 2012: Comment period extended for the third time; extended almost another year, to September 30, 2013.

December 6, 2012: Encana calls on EPA to abandon Pavillion natural gas well tests. Paraphrasing: "the tests are flawed and the EPA needs to start over. Re-focus."

October 18, 2012: link to OGJ -- USGS did a better job testing the water at Pavillion, WY, than the EPA did -- API.  When you read the story, it sounds just like the Lance Armstrong doping controversy. The USGS did not find some of the substances that the EPA said they found in the water.

October 11, 2012: WSJ story, page A3; essentially a press release by the EPA;

September 27, 2012: Bloomberg story. Encana disputes the interpretation of these findings and this story, at ABC News.

March 9, 2012: EPA to re-test water from the various wells in Wyoming -- Reuters.

January 9, 2012: apparently Encana has had enough of this craziness; Encana is asking EPA to suspend the comment period; asking the EPA clarify its concerns and its data; and then re-open the comment period.

January 1, 2012: EPA-CYA -- Bismarck Tribune

December 27, 2011: Well, well, well, isn't this interesting. It looks like the EPA testing was flawed on so many levels. This is what I wrote as soon as I heard the original story about the EPA results. "There is so much in this short article that does not ring true with regard to fracking, but the timing is remarkable." The Dickinson Press was the first (or among the first) regional paper in the state to publish the EPA story when it broke. It will be interesting to see if The Dickinson Press prints this update.

December 14, 2011: in drips and draps, the truth is coming out.

The fracking at Pavillion involved vertical — not horizontal — wells, and many wells didn’t have the protective casing that’s commonly used to prevent chemicals from leaking into the surrounding environment.

That contrasts with most major shale gas plays across the U.S., where fracking typically occurs in horizontal wells drilled as deep as two or three kilometres underground, well below any aquifers or groundwater supplies.

Even the EPA hedged its bets. To me, it appears EPA was looking for a headline; the EPA folks are a bit like the North Koreans: when they feel ignored they do something to make headlines.

December 10, 2011: Encana agrees -- the science doesn't add up. Exactly what  I said below. I wonder if the EPA administrator was personally aware of what was going on in Wyoming?

Doug Hock a spokesman for Encana, said concerns about the pollution of drinking water "are not borne out by the facts." The EPA's test wells, he noted, were far below the depth of drinking water wells.

"At a depth where you would expect to find hydrocarbons, they found hydrocarbons. In drinking wells, they found no impacts due to oil and gas," he said.

"We've done extensive testing, the state has done extensive testing, and never have we found the effects of oil and gas in these drinking water wells," Hock said.

Original Post

From The Dickinson Press link here.

CHEYENNE, Wyo. (AP) — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for the first time has implicated fracking — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — for causing groundwater pollution.

The finding could have a chilling effect in states trying to determine how to regulate the controversial process.

It is not uncommon for hydrocarbons to be found in well water. "Fingerprinting" will reveal these hydrocarbons did not come from fracking.

There is so much in this short article that does not ring true with regard to fracking, but the timing is remarkable.

For a much better report, click here. Also, here in the LA Times.