In a first, federal environment officials Thursday scientifically linked underground water pollution with hydraulic fracturing, concluding that contaminants found in central Wyoming were likely caused by the gas drilling process.
The findings by the Environmental Protection Agency come partway through a separate national study by the agency to determine whether fracking presents a risk to water resources.
Tags: · EPA, fracking, fracking chemicals, fracking fluid, Pavillion, Pro Publica, water contamination, well water contamination, Wyoming
by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, Nov. 29, 2011, 11:14 a.m.
A deal to sell a controversial central Wyoming natural gas field has fallen apart amidst allegations that drilling there has caused water pollution.
Texas-based Legacy Resources backed out of a $45 million deal to buy the field near Pavillion, Wyom., from EnCana last week, soon after the Environmental Protection Agency said it had detected cancer-causing benzene at 50 times the level safe for humans and other carcinogenic pollutants during its latest round of sampling.
Tags: · 2-butoxyethanol, acetone, benzene, Encana, fracking, fracking fluid, Legacy Resources, naphthalene, toluene, Water Pollution, Wyoming, Wyoming gas contamination
By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now
Congressmen Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.) and Edward Markey (D-Mass.) are asking for more information about the chemicals used to extract natural gas wells.
Urban gas well outside a mall in North Texas
Today, the two lawmakers sent letters to eight oil and natural gas companies requesting details of the ingredients used in hydraulic fracturing, a method of accessing natural gas deposits by blasting or fracturing the rock with a high pressure injection of water treated with chemicals.
Tags: · Barnett Shale, Clean Water Act, Edward Markey, Fossil Fuels, fracking fluid, gas drilling, Halliburton Loophole, Henry Waxman, Marcellus Shale, natural gas, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, West Virginia
Barbara Kessler
Andrew Winston
Danielle Nierenberg
Anthony Swift