Whether treated wastewater from natural gas drilling sites will be more extensively analyzed for radiation levels still is an unknown, but at least two Pennsylvania water systems don’t plan to wait and will step up radiological tests, officials said last week.

The decision to increase testing on wastewater pumped from shale drilling sites during hydraulic fracturing (hydrofracking) operations came after the New York Times launched a series of articles about hydrofracking and an alleged lack of oversight on drilling operations. Two congressmen and a number of environmental groups called for investigations.

Using documents the Times writer claimed to have unearthed from files of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), the article asserted that routine water testing had not occurred at close to 65 of the state’s drinking water intake sites since 2008, and most intake sites had not been inspected for almost six years. Some testing that was done at wellheads showed high levels of radioactive material.

The article alleged that natural gas drilling fluids brought naturally occurring radioactive elements to the surface from the wellbore, and that contaminated water was passed into creeks and rivers and ultimately into drinking water in amounts that would be harmful to humans.

Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) followed up last week with a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, requesting “immediate assistance and immediate action” in responding to the story’s implications. Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) also requested that EPA and DEP step up inspections. In addition to more inspections, Casey also wants more public disclosure about the state’s drinking water.

“No threat to Pennsylvania drinking water should be taken lightly,” Casey wrote. “I am calling on the DEP and the EPA to increase inspections of Pennsylvania drinking water resources for radioactive material and to account for why sufficient inspections haven’t taken place.”

Some wastewater treatment facilities “may not be equipped to adequately treat wastewaters from hydraulic fracturing operations” and “may release still-tainted waters into rivers and other waterways,” the senator wrote.

The Pennsylvania senator referred to a 2009 EPA study mentioned in the Times story, which asserted “that some Pennsylvania rivers are not cable of sufficiently diluting radioactive wastewater. Why did EPA not make this information available to Pennsylvania regulators?”

In his letter Casey requested the EPA examine and assert its authority under federal laws to ensure the safety of citizens who use water from regulated drinking water sources.”

EPA has no authority from the Congress to regulate oil and gas drilling or hydrofracking. That job has been left to the states. Nevertheless, the agency is conducting an extensive study of the drilling process to determine if current state regulation is adequate. The final results are expected in 2012.

In a statement the EPA said agency scientists are studying hydrofracking “to better understand any potential impacts it may have on drinking water resources…While we conduct this study, we will not hesitate to take any steps under the law to protect Americans whose health may be at risk and we remain committed to working with states, who are on the front lines of permitting and regulating natural gas production activities.”

Pennsylvania American Water, which provides water for more than 200,000 customers in Allegheny, Washington and Fayette counties, said it plans to conduct radiological tests and report the results to DEP and EPA for analysis. The system draws water from the Monongahela River, or the “Mon,” and it plans to conduct radiological tests at its intakes along the Monongahela, Clarion and Allegheny rivers in the next few weeks.

The Mon, which is the primary water source for Pennsylvania American Water, had its last test for radioactivity in 2008 on finished tap water. The water tests were “well within” federal and state standards, said the company. “We will continue to follow the U.S. EPA and DEP monitoring and sampling guidelines for radium at this time. Pennsylvania American Water’s plants on the Mon River continue to surpass all federal and state drinking water standards.”

In addition, the Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority also plans to schedule radiation tests on drinking water sources this year, said a spokesperson.

In the meantime the first article in the New York Times series, which ran on the front page and two inside pages in the first section of the Sunday Times, has come in for some harsh criticism from several quarters for building a rambling diatribe against natural gas around many broad generalizations and a very few facts, of which most were cited by others as either erroneous or outdated.

The article was “deliberately misleading,” the former chief of Pennsylvania’s DEP said.

The author of the Times’ “Drilling Down” series “had a goal to start with and he wanted to fit the information to a narrative,” John Hanger told NGI last week. Hanger left his job as head of DEP after Republicans took over the statehouse in the last election.

“It was willful and deliberate,” Hanger said of the errors in the piece. The reporter “knew how to get on the front page. It should be actionable…The New York Times would be successfully sued in Europe for this type of story.”

“That phrase, ‘lax regulation,’ is deliberately misleading. It calls into question the entire regulatory effort in Pennsylvania. He willfully left out information that would have exploded his narrative.We’re off the charts on strengthening our regulations,” Hanger said.

If there were problems with radiation “that information never reached me,” he said. “Pennsylvania has the very best public employees. Dave Allard, who is quoted in the story, is a total straight arrow.” Allard is director of Pennsylvania’s Bureau of Radiation Protection. “When we were working on fracking issues, I asked him the pertinent questions: ‘Will hydrofracking affect drilling workers, will it affect truck drivers, will it affect the public and public health?’ His answer was always ‘no.’

Hanger, who has more than adequate “clean” credentials as former head of the PennFuture environmental group, posted several responses to the story on his blog, Facts of the Day. Hanger is special counsel for Eckert Seamans in Pennsylvania and also runs Hanger Consulting LLC.

“The only response to that issue [potential radiation] is to test the water,” Hanger said. “The only way to determine whether there are problems in the water is to test, which is a relatively easy thing to do.” He said public water supply operators should voluntarily test the water supplies. “And if they don’t voluntarily test the water, then they should be ordered to test the waters…

Information about radiation levels that may be above acceptable limits in the state’s drinking water “never reached me,” Hanger noted.

The second thrust of the story — the lax regulation — “permeates the story…and is deliberately misleading,” said Hanger. He pointed to a report published last September by STRONGER Inc., the State Review of Oil & Natural Gas Environmental Regulations, which said Pennsylvania’s hydrofracking regulations were “overall, well managed, professional and meeting [their] program objectives” (see NGI, Sept. 27, 2010).

“A lot of states don’t want to open their books to STRONGER but we were delighted,” Hanger said of the review. “I asked [the reporter] why he didn’t include that information — from last September — and he said one word, ‘dated.’ If I could have jumped through the phone line I would have. He’s looking at a three-year period. How can a report from last September be ‘dated?'”

The story implied that Pennsylvania doesn’t enforce its drilling regulations and that it “quite deliberately doesn’t report the violations” that DEP staff finds. Hanger pointed to the enforcement actions for drilling violations imposed on EOG Resources Inc. and Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. “They had to stop drilling for months…costing them probably millions of dollars. That’s not in the story.”

Another problem: the reporter never interviewed Hanger, even though he is quoted in the story. Hanger contacted the reporter after reading the story and asked why he hadn’t been given a chance to comment before publication.

“He said my perspective wasn’t relevant anymore,” Hanger said of the reporter’s response. “I wasn’t relevant? I was over DEP during the time that the [Times] investigation covered. How can I not be relevant?”

The Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC) also reacted to the report.

“While raising some valid questions about water monitoring, this article — seven months in the making — lacks context, offers misleading comparisons and in some cases put forth information that is not supported by the facts,” the MSC stated. Additional “background,” which it said is “all available in the public domain…paints an entirely different picture than what was laid out by the Times…” Among other things, the MSC disputed several claims.

One “myth” is that “Pennsylvania is the only state that has allowed drillers to discharge much of their waste through sewage treatment plants into rivers,” said the MSC. In fact, “Pennsylvania leads the nation in wastewater recycling,” with nearly 70% produced in the Marcellus Shale wells reused or recycled. The industry, it noted, also is moving toward “100% recycling, zero discharge.”

Another “myth” in the story is that “gas producers are generally left to police themselves when it comes to spills,” noted the MSC. However, the coalition noted that in a DEP report, oversight staff in 2010 alone “performed nearly 5,000 inspections at Marcellus Shale drilling locations, a more than 100% increase over the previous year.”

The MSC also took the Times to task for a statement indicating that hydrofracking is a “relatively new drilling method…” However, the MSC noted that in a Times article on Feb. 24, it stated that hydrofracking “has been used by drillers for around 60 years.”

There were other comments. “Amazingly, even after six months of research, the article’s main conclusion seems to be that wastewater from drilling sites isn’t safe to drink. Now there’s a surprise. I think most would agree that wastewater produced from natural gas development at the wellhead is not safe to drink,” said Frank Maisano, with Bracewell & Giuliani LLP, said in his weekly column.

“In this type of situation, the truth never catches up to the lie,” Hanger opined. As a “willing participant in the arena…I can’t whine about it. The real loss is the loss of public understanding and public information.”

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