“Tucked inside the Senate bill aimed at cracking down on oil drillers after the Gulf spill is a long-sought measure [1] to protect groundwater from natural gas drilling.” Click on Title to read full article.

Buried Secrets: Is Natural Gas Drilling Endangering U.S. Water Supplies? by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - 11/13/08
Nov. 19: This post has been corrected.

In July, a hydrologist dropped a plastic sampling pipe 300 feet down a water well in rural Sublette County, Wyo., and pulled up a load of brown oily water with a foul smell. Tests showed it contained benzene, a chemical believed to cause aplastic anemia and leukemia, in a concentration 1,500 times the level safe for people.

The results sent shockwaves through the energy industry and state and federal regulatory agencies.

A joint investigation by ProPublica and New York City public radio station WNYC found that this type of drilling (hydro-fracking) has caused significant environmental harm in other states and could affect the watershed that supplies New York City's drinking water.

In New Mexico, oil and gas drilling that uses waste pits comparable to those planned for New York has already caused toxic chemicals to leach into the water table at some 800 sites. Colorado has reported more than 300 spills affecting its ground water.

Click to read full article

Correction added at end of story (1/16/09)

Turn on the tap and New Yorkers get completely unfiltered H2O, flowing from the upstate streams and rivers to faucets from the Bronx to Brooklyn.

Since 1993, the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency has exempted New York City from its filtration requirement, making it only one of a handful of major U. S. cities that does not have to filter its water before letting its citizens gulp. The city's system is the largest unfiltered water delivery system in the country.

Click to read full article.

New York Puts Brakes on Drilling in NYC Watershed, Clears Way for Upstate Wells by Next Spring by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - April 23, 2010 2:36 pm EDT

New York State environment officials shoved a cumbersome task off their plates Friday when they announced that their controversial environmental review of natural gas drilling in New York's Marcellus Shale would not apply to drilling inside New York City's 1,900-square-mile watershed.

The decision appears to protect the unfiltered water supply for nine million residents -- as well as another unfiltered watershed near Syracuse, N.Y. -- because energy companies will be required to undergo a separate and exhaustive review for each well they propose to drill and hydraulically fracture inside the area, a hurdle that may amount to a de facto ban.

But it also removes a significant political and scientific obstacle to completing the two-year statewide review process [1], paving the way for drilling to proceed across much of the rest of the state as soon as next spring.  Read full article.

Cabot Oil & Gas’s Marcellus Drilling to Slow After PA Environment Officials Order Wells Closed by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica - April 16, 2010

In its 2009 annual report, Cabot Oil and Gas named a field in Texas and another in Dimock, Pa., as its two largest fields of production. But yesterday the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection ordered Cabot to plug at least three of its gas wells in Dimock and pay hefty fines after contaminating local drinking water. Read full article.

http://www.earthworksaction.org/hydfracking.cfm

http://www.earthworksaction.org/publications.cfm?pubID=395
http://www.earthworksaction.org/FracingDetails.cfm
http://www.earthworksaction.org/marcellusshale.cfm

http://www.earthworksaction.org/ColoToxics.cfm

http://www.earthworksaction.org/NMToxics.cfm

Bills to Repeal Exemption for Hydraulic Fracturing in

Federal Safe Drinking Water Act

FRAC Act (S. 1215/ H.R. 2766.)

Hundreds of different types of chemicals are used in fracturing operations, many of which can cause serious health problems or are known carcinogens.

The bills that would repeal the exemption for hydraulic fracturing, also known as the “Halliburton Loophole”, in the Safe Drinking Water Act, are still alive according to Congressman Jerrold Nadler's office.

The bills would require public disclosure of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing that are mixed with the water and sand when they are pumped underground in the fracturing process, information that has largely been protected as trade secrets.

Fracking remains a concern for the House Energy and Commerce committee and that the committee is investigating the fracturing leases and the agency oversight of such leases. Congressman Nadler's staff continue to monitor the issue and the progress in Congress of the fracking bills.

The oil and gas industry has spent millions of dollars lobbying against fracturing regulation over the last two years. Officials with the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington have said that the exemption for fracturing is unique, and that the oil and gas industry is the only industry to be exempted from oversight under one of the nation’s landmark laws to protect drinking water.

Josh Fox was recently interviewed about his film on the PBS program NOW. The film asserts that frac'ing of wells has caused underground aquifers to be charged with methane in Pennsylvania and Colorado and poses severe risks of contamination to the water supply. Josh Fox notes that hydraulic fracturing is exempt from federal regulation, and he advocates for passage of the FRAC Act now before Congress that would give the EPA jurisdiction over hydraulic fracturing.