Broad Scope of EPA’s Fracturing Study Raises Ire of Gas Industry
ProPublica
7 April 2010
By Abrahm Lustgarten
A federal study of hydraulic fracturing set to begin this spring is
expected to provide the most expansive look yet at how the natural gas
drilling process can affect drinking water supplies, according to
interviews with EPA officials and a set of documents outlining the
scope of the project. The research will take a substantial step beyond
previous studies and focus on how a broad range of ancillary activity –
not just the act of injecting fluids under pressure – may affect
drinking water quality.
The oil and gas industry strongly opposes this new approach. The
agency’s intended research "goes well beyond relationships between
hydraulic fracturing and drinking water," said Lee Fuller, vice
president of government affairs for the Independent Petroleum
Association of America in comments he submitted to the Environmental
Protection Agency.
The "lifecycle" approach will allow the agency to take into account
hundreds of reports of water contamination in gas drilling fields
across the country. Although the agency hasn’t settled on the exact
details, researchers could examine both underground and surface water
supplies, gas well construction errors, liquid waste disposal issues
and chemical storage plans as part of its assessment.
The EPA begins public hearings today in Washington to nail down the
scope of the study.
Plans for the study have attracted international attention and have
been the focus of intense debate among lawmakers and the oil and gas
industry. The findings could affect Congress’ decision whether to
repeal an exemption that shields the fracturing process from federal
regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The EPA is undertaking the study in response to a wave of reports of
water contamination in drilling areas across the country and a
Congressional mandate issued in an appropriations bill last fall. The
agency had previously examined hydraulic fracturing in a 2004 study
that was limited in scope and was widely criticized.
"When we did the 2004 study we were looking particularly for potential
for impacts from hydraulic fracturing fluid underground to underground
sources of drinking water," said Cynthia Dougherty, the EPA’s director
of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water. "So it was a much
narrower focus."
For the latest study, the EPA sent its scoping document to its Science
Advisory Board asking for the group’s input in designing the fracturing
study. In the document, the EPA explained that information gained from
looking at the impact from the start to the end of the process, called
a lifecycle assessment "can help policymakers understand and make
decisions about the breadth of issues related to hydraulic fracturing,
including cross-media risks and the relationship to the entire natural
gas production cycle."
In past interviews with ProPublica, Fuller has explained that, in his
view, hydraulic fracturing shouldn’t be blamed for any contamination
unless the process of injecting fracturing fluids underground under
pressure was "the sole" cause of contamination. If contamination seeped
through cracks in a gas well’s protective casing under pressure of the
fracturing process, for example, he wouldn’t attribute it to fracturing
because the cracks may have existed before the fracturing process began
and would be a well construction problem, not a fracturing problem.
Fuller’s definition of fracturing-related contamination helps explain
the oil and gas industry’s steadfast claim that that there is not a
single case in which hydraulic fracturing has been proven to have
contaminated drinking water supplies.
An 18-month investigation by ProPublica, however, has shown more than
1,000 cases in which various aspects of the fracturing lifecycle have
affected water supplies, including spills of fracturing fluid waste,
cracking of underground cement and well casings meant to enclose the
fracturing process, and methane gas traveling large distances
underground through faults and fractures.
In planning its study, the EPA has made clear that for its purposes
fracturing may play a role in many aspects of the drilling process and
in many different environmental risks. The study could examine how
well-construction activities have the potential to impact water, what
specific materials or design practices would make a well suitable for
fracturing, and what are the most effective methods for measuring well
integrity.
The EPA hopes to complete its research by late 2012, the end of
President Obama’s first term in office. Scientists say that may not be
enough time to include substantial field monitoring and water analysis;
policymakers say that is too long to wait for a decision from Congress.
The agency’s conclusions could have wide-ranging effects. Last month
President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said he would curtail natural gas
production by the state company Gazprom until the study is completed.
In part that’s because Medvedev isn’t sure there will be a viable
market for Russian gas if the U.S. develops its domestic reserves, and
because he believes that the regulations that could result from the EPA
study could determine whether the U.S. drills its own gas, or imports
it from overseas.
If the comments already submitted to the EPA by stakeholders are any
indication, the research process will be contentious.
In Fuller’s comments to the EPA, he said that the study shouldn’t focus
on the harm fracturing could inflict on water supplies, but rather on
whether current environmental regulations "effectively manage the
environmental risks of the fracturing process."
"If these risks are well managed, the other questions are meaningless,"
he wrote. "The Scoping Materials Document fails to reflect this
reality."
In another letter, Ben Wallace, chief operating officer of Penneco Oil
Co., wrote: "The clear historical record shows that hydraulic
fracturing has been employed for decades successfully without incident.
We are concerned that bureaucratic machinations have caused the EPA to
hypothesize a problem and that EPA is now seeking research to justify a
solution to a nonexistent problem."
Environmental officials from New York City, who are concerned about how
plans to drill for gas in the state’s Marcellus Shale will affect the
city’s water supply, also submitted comments to the EPA, urging the
agency to follow through with its ambitious plans.
"The City concluded that horizontal drilling and high-volume hydraulic
fracturing using the current technologies pose an unacceptable threat
to the water supply of nine million New Yorkers, and cannot be safely
permitted in the watershed," wrote Caswell Holloway, commissioner of
New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection. The city
encouraged the Science Advisory Board and the EPA "to take a hard look
at this activity and to recognize that the absence of contamination
does not necessarily imply an activity is safe, but may actually
reflect extensive gaps in monitoring information."
Write to Abrahm Lustgarten at Abrahm.Lustgarten@propublica.org