During a contentious House subcommittee hearing last week on an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) investigation of well water contamination in Wyoming, one lawmaker accused the agency of being on a hydraulic fracturing (fracking) witch hunt, while another hammered it on the semantics of a press release he said overstated the potential for a fracking-contamination link.

The hearing was called to examine EPA’s practices in preparing a draft report on alleged contamination of water wells in Pavillion, WY, which was released last December and is out for public comment until March 12 (see NGI, Jan. 16). Encana Corp., which has been accused of causing the contamination, and industry interests have blasted the report for inaccuracies and faulty science, while others — such as some lawmakers in Maryland who seek to stall Marcellus Shale development — have cited it as a red flag on fracking.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), chair of the House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, said at the hearing of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee, “It’s important to recognize that what EPA is doing in Wyoming is not isolated. They’re going after fracking everywhere they can. I guess that’s what I’m trying to tell you. They’ve been through most of the jurisdictions here and absolutely have had no proof…that would imply that fracking had damaged drinking water, not that I know of.”

While questioning EPA Region 8 Administrator James Martin, Hall said the agency dealt with the state of Wyoming in a high-handed manner and may have violated state regulations governing the drilling of wells when it drilled its two monitoring wells to investigate citizen allegations of well water contamination.

Martin countered that EPA had indeed consulted with the state on a number of occasions on the investigation and the monitoring wells, which were drilled in summer 2010. That assertion was undermined by testimony of Tom Doll, oil and gas supervisor for the Wyoming Oil & Gas Conservation Commission.

Doll characterized the involvement of the state’s Department of Environmental Quality as minimal. “They were informed that the monitoring wells were going to be drilled about the time the drilling rig was moved to the site,” he testified. “The Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was not consulted. They [EPA] might have emailed…”

Martin: “I believe we conducted significantly greater consultation than Mr. Doll might be aware of. Early in the process the Department of Environmental Quality for the state of Wyoming was designated as the lead agency for the state of Wyoming as part of this process. We consulted with them. We actually consulted with Encana in designing the monitoring wells that were constructed in 2010. We had significantly greater consultation with the state than perhaps Mr. Doll is aware of.”

Hall said he wants to see a representative from Wyoming named to the panel that will conduct a peer review of the EPA study’s findings. Martin said that was planned.

Later during the nearly two-hour hearing Subcommittee Chair Andy Harris (R-MD) seized upon differences in the wording of the draft study report and the press release announcing its findings. Harris said that while an EPA press release said fracking was the “likely” cause of contamination, the actual draft report only used the word “likely” in one place in its conclusions section, and that was only to say that gas production activities likely enhanced gas migration. Elsewhere, the report uses the construction “the data best supports,” said Harris, who is a medical doctor. “Now in medicine if you have 10 different diagnosis…what you’d say is you know the data best supports this one…

“Can you describe what the difference is between ‘best supports’ and ‘likely’ because the press release — and see the whole purpose of this hearing is to say, ‘look, you’re jumping the gun.’ The press release says ‘likely,’ but the draft report actually doesn’t say ‘likely’ about the migration, about hydraulic fluid contamination.

“[Scientists] didn’t use the word ‘likely.’ You [Martin] used the word likely in your testimony. The press office used the word ‘likely’ in the press release, but the scientists didn’t. They said, ‘best fitting’ and ‘best supports.’ I’ve written many scientific papers, and when my P-value [a measurement of probability] wasn’t high enough, this is what I used. I couldn’t say it’s likely…”

Later during the hearing a witness from the University of Pittsburgh, Bernard Goldstein, a professor in the Graduate School of Public Health and also a medical doctor, testified that he didn’t see much of a distinction between “likely” and “best supports.”

Harris grilled Martin on EPA’s findings of benzene in monitoring wells. Martin conceded that benzene was the only chemical found in concentrations exceeding drinking water standards. When pressed by Harris on whether the benzene was found in one or both of the two monitoring wells, Martin said he didn’t know. Harris, citing the EPA’s draft report, asserted that benzene was found in only one well in concentrations exceeding those considered safe for drinking water.

When Ranking committee member Brad Miller (D-NC) had his turn at bat with Martin, first on his agenda was to establish that benzene is a “known carcinogen.”

Doll testified that EPA failed to consider possible sources of water contamination in Pavillion other than fracking. He said EPA’s report contains “poor quality data and science” and the state of Wyoming’s experts don’t support its findings. The dissemination of the draft report in the media has resulted in “a worldwide damnation of hydraulic fracturing,” Doll said.

In fact, the hearing got under way only after the pied piper of the anti-fracking movement was escorted from the chamber in handcuffs. Gasland film director Josh Fox had sought to attend and film the hearing, but Harris had him removed because he had failed to obtain the proper press credentials. The anti-fracking film Gasland has been blamed by the energy industry for much of the misinformation floating around about the practice of fracking (see NGI, Feb. 21, 2011). A film crew for ABC News, also was ejected from the hearing for lack of credentials. Harris, backed by Republicans on the committee, refused to waive the rules on credentials, noting that the hearing already was being webcast, and committee Democrats failed to win votes to overturn the chairman’s ruling.

Kathleen Sgamma, testifying at the hearing for the Western Energy Alliance, pointed out that “once misinformation gets out in the public, it takes on a life of its own and is almost impossible to correct.”

Like Sgamma, Goldstein seized upon confusion among the public at large about fracking. On the one hand, fracking has been described as a long-standing process in oil and gas development, used for years with little consequence, he said. On the other, fracking is pitched as a new technology that has unlocked vast natural gas and now oil resources. “It can’t be both,” he said.

In the early days of fracking the industry was using far less water at lower pressures in shallower wells without horizontal laterals, Goldstein said. “I think that the idea that ‘this has been around for so long’ and ‘don’t worry about it’ is inappropriate…” he said, suggesting that fracking today is like a “two-ton bomb” compared with the “hand grenade” of earlier days. “It is a wonderful new technology, but we have to be careful with it.”

Goldstein conceded that America’s vast gas reserves would end up being produced. Because they’re not going anywhere, why the rush, he asked, noting that he agreed with a recent call by a group of physicians for a pause in fracking while its effects are studied further.

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