Independent producers contend that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is going “far beyond the scope” of what Congress directed the agency to study about the relationship between hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracing) and potential drinking water contamination.

The EPA has given the agency’s Science Advisory Board — which is tasked with defining the scope of the hydrofracing study — a “broad array of issues to look at,” including air emissions issues, community health and environmental justice issues and “many others that would distract the study from its congressional intent,” wrote Lee O. Fuller, vice president of government relations for the Independent Petroleum Association of America, in a recent letter to the head of the EPA Science Advisory Board.

“We believe that the study needs to be framed around a key threshold question — whether the regulatory structures effectively manage the environmental risks of the fracturing process. If these risks are well managed, the other questions are meaningless. If the regulatory structures prevent pathways to drinking water, there [are] no risks,” said Fuller. IPAA also spoke before the advisory board, which met Tuesday and Wednesday.

But the EPA’s scoping document “fails to reflect this reality. For example, of the 28 items listed under the ‘Potential Elements of Research Study,’ no item is included related to evaluating the effectiveness of the regulations to prevent risks to drinking water,” Fuller said.

“We recommend that the first focus of the [EPA] research study should include the involvement of the state regulatory agencies that have designed and implemented programs to protect ground water. These agencies bear the principal responsibility to protect drinking water supplies,” he noted.

Fuller cited a recent New York State Department of Environmental Conservation draft report on the human health risks of hydrofracing fluid additives in the Marcellus Shale formation. It concluded that “the results of our conservative analysis indicate that potential human health risks associated with model HF [hydrofracing] fluid additives and measured flowback constituents via drinking water (and other household uses of water) are expected to be insignificant and even de minimis as defined by agency-based guidelines.” Hydrofracing, which is used to stimulate many oil and natural gas wells, is a process in which fluids are injected at high pressure into underground rock formations to fracture the rock and increase the flow of fossil fuels.

In mid-March the EPA ordered the study of the potential risks of hydrofracing on water quality and public health (see Daily GPI, March 19). Producers, at the time, welcomed news of the agency study, saying they had nothing to fear if the study was conducted objectively.

Congress approved funds for the EPA study as part of the fiscal year (FY) 2010 spending bill for Interior, Environment and Related Agencies. The EPA said it is reallocating $1.9 million for the study this year and has requested additional funding in the president’s budget proposal for FY 2011.

The agency said it was in the “very early stages” of designing a hydrofracing research program. It said it expected to begin the process by defining research questions and identifying data gaps; conducting a process for stakeholder input and research prioritization; developing a detailed study design that will undergo external peer review; and leading to implementing the planned research studies.

As part of the study the EPA said it would seek comments from the Environmental Engineering Committee of EPA’s Science Advisory Board, specifically to evaluate and provide advice on the agency’s proposed approach.

This will be the EPA’s second study of the hydrofracing process. A 2004 study found that hydrofracing was not a threat to the environment or public health, according to producers. However, hydrofracing opponents claimed that the study was biased.

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