EPA: No threat to Dimock water
citizensvoice.com/news/drilling/epa-no-threat-to-dimock-water-1.1240232#axzz1fO7zQV00
By David Falchek (Staff Writer)
Published: December 3, 2011
After a preliminary review of well water tests in the heavily-drilled area of Dimock, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency told residents their water poses “no immediate health threat.”
The email sent to residents from Trish Taylor, community involvement coordinator for EPA Region 3, notes that the review is ongoing and pledged that the agency would continue to monitor the situation.
“While we are continuing our review, to date, the data does not indicate that the well water presents an immediate health threat to users,” said the e-mail. Taylor could not be reached for comment Friday.
While the EPA has no direct jurisdiction over Dimock water quality, residents invited the agency to review state and company water quality tests.
The EPA’s email came two days after Cabot’s state-ordered potable water deliveries stopped and the day after state Environmental Hearing Board Judge Bernard A. Labuskes Jr. denied residents an emergency hearing.
The EPA’s comments were embraced by drilling advocates and Cabot Oil & Gas officials, but met with skepticism from residents convinced that drilling activity fouled their well water.
Cabot officials interpreted the EPA’s email as confirmation of the company’s test results – most of which is done through state-certified laboratories. “The EPA’s findings are consistent with the results of thousands of water samples tested by Cabot over the last several years,” the company said in a statement.
But some residents of the area made famous by flaming faucets object to the EPA’s preliminary opinion. They say their water smells of natural gas or turpentine or is turbid and unusable.
Victoria Switzer, vocal skeptic of the gas industry, called the EPA statement “lunacy.” But she didn’t see it as a total setback, noting that the agency has yet to make a final determination. She notes the EPA did not do its own tests and she is hopeful the agency will continue to pay attention to the area.
An attorney for some residents asked Taylor to retract her statement. In a letter, Tate J. Kunke offered a list of substances found in Dimock water believed to have come from hydraulic fracturing fluid – substances rarely looked for in water testing.
“We do not feel it is wise for homeowners to potentially expose themselves to untested chemicals, even if a few that have been tested for appear to temporarily pass… standards,” Kunke wrote. “Chronic, low level exposure to fracking chemicals is too great a medical risk to assume. Our clients are not lab rats.”
dfalchek@timesshamrock.com
Researchers: Pa. gas drilling study had error
www.timesleader.com/news/Researchers__Pa__gas_drilling_study_had_error_12-02-2011.html
December 2, 2011
Far less evidence of well contamination by bromides than first suggested.
PITTSBURGH — A recently released study on natural gas drilling and contamination of water wells, contentious issues as drillers swarm to a lucrative shale formation beneath Pennsylvania, had an error, according to researchers from Penn State University.
The researchers reported that there is far less evidence of well contamination by bromides, salty mineral compounds that can combine with other elements to cause health problems, than first suggested.
The researchers are reviewing the entire study, released in October, after discovering that results from an independent water testing lab contained the error.
One water well, not seven, showed increased bromide levels after drilling, the researchers said in a statement issued last week by The Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a state-funded agency that first released the study.
One of the Penn State University researchers, Bryan Swistock, said in an email that the study didn’t go through an independent scientific peer review process because of a Center for Rural Pennsylvania policy that reports must first go to the General Assembly before outside publication.
The study is now being submitted for outside review, he said.
Patrick Creighton, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a gas industry group, said in an email that the error was “small” and that the key point is still that nearly 40 percent of the wells tested failed at least one water quality standard even before natural gas drilling started, along with nearly 20 percent that showed traces of methane before drilling.
The researchers said a corrected version of the study will be issued.
A gas drilling procedure called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which involves blasting chemical-laced water into the ground, has been studied by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others as drillers flock to the Marcellus Shale region primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned.
Environmentalists and other critics say fracking could poison water supplies, but the natural gas industry says it’s been used safely for decades.