Lab finds toxic chemicals in Dimock Twp. water
http://citizensvoice.com/news/lab-finds-toxic-chemicals-in-dimock-twp-water-1.1014270
Lab finds toxic chemicals in Dimock Twp. water
BY LAURA LEGERE (STAFF WRITER)
Published: September 16, 2010
Michael J. Mullen / times-shamrock
Victoria Switzer of Dimock Township presents an array of photographs depicting environmental problems caused by gas drilling in the area to Scranton Mayor Chris Doherty in March. Water testing by a private environmental engineering firm has found widespread contamination of drinking water by toxic chemicals in an area of Dimock Township already affected by methane contamination from natural gas drilling.
Reports of the positive test results first came Monday when Dimock resident Victoria Switzer testified at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on hydraulic fracturing in Binghamton, N.Y., that the firm Farnham and Associates Inc. had confirmed ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene were present in her water.
The firm’s president, Daniel Farnham, said this week that the incidence of contamination is not isolated.
Instead, he has found hydrocarbon solvents – including ethylbenzene, toluene and xylene – in the well water of “almost everybody” on and around Carter Road in Dimock where methane traced to deep rock formations has also been found.
The chemicals he found in the water in Dimock generally have industrial uses, including in antifreeze, gasoline and paint – except propylene glycol, which is also used in food products.
All of the constituents are also frequently used as chemical additives mixed with high volumes of water and sand to fracture gas-bearing rock formations – a crucial but controversial part of natural gas exploration commonly called “fracking.”
Farnham’s findings could cast doubt on the safety of the practice, which state regulators and the gas industry say has never been definitively linked to water contamination during the 60 years it has been used.
Critics say compelling anecdotal evidence, like that from Dimock, indicates otherwise.
Farnham stopped short of attributing the contamination to natural gas activity.
“Do I have enough information to say that this stuff came from fracking? I can’t prove that,” he said. “I don’t think anybody can. But it certainly is interesting.”
Residents in Dimock began raising concerns about their water nearly two years ago, when they began to notice changes in odor, color, taste and texture.
The Department of Environmental Protection determined that Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. allowed methane from a deep rock formation to seep into 14 residential drinking water supplies through faulty or overpressured casing in its Marcellus Shale gas wells.
But the department also determined in March 2009 that hydraulic fracturing activities had not impacted the water wells after it tested for indicators of fracturing impacts, including salts, calcium, barium, iron, manganese, potassium and aluminum.
In April of this year, Switzer and two of her neighbors who live at the bottom of a valley along Burdick Creek noticed that their water ran soapy. A DEP specialist came to test the water three days later, she said, but by that time the foam was gone.
DEP results from its April tests for ethylene glycol and propylene glycol found no trace of the chemicals, DEP spokesman Tom Rathbun said.
But over the spring and summer, with routine testing, Farnham noticed a pattern of troubling spikes: “After a heavy rain, certainly these things seem to crop up as the aquifer is disturbed,” he said.
“What I found was hydrocarbons – ethylbenzene, toluene – in almost everybody who was impacted in the area,” he said. “Oddly enough, if I were to go due east or due west of the affected area, I found nothing.”
In August, Farnham shared the results with Cabot during a meeting concerning a lawsuit many of the affected families have filed against the company. During a second meeting that month with the families in Dimock, Farnham told DEP Secretary John Hanger and Oil and Gas Bureau Director Scott Perry what he had found.
Rathbun, the DEP spokesman, said the agency is currently testing for toluene throughout the affected area and will be able to evaluate Farnham’s findings once its own widespread round of testing is done. “To date, DEP’s lab analyses do not support his findings,” he said.
Cabot Oil and Gas Corp. spokesman George Stark said pre-drill testing performed by Farnham when he was contracted by land agents of the company in May 2008 showed the hydrocarbon solvents and glycols pre-existed in some wells.
Farnham said Wednesday he never tested for the constituents in 2008, let alone detected them.
Farnham’s investigation into the contaminants is ongoing: He has more samples to analyze and more spikes in the test results to research and confirm. But he is certain that his findings so far are correct.
“I double- and triple-checked everything to make sure the evidence is irrefutable,” he said.
llegere@timesshamrock.com