Sampling

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has undertaken five case studies in the Marcellus, Barnett and Bakken shales and the Raton Basin on the impact of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) on drinking water sources as part of its multi-year review of the well stimulation technique used in unconventional plays.

Extracting natural gas from shale formations using hydraulic fracturing (fracking) “has no direct connection” to groundwater contamination reports, based on a study of three big shale gas plays in the United States, the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) said in a new report.

Pennsylvania regulators say “improper” construction at Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. wells in northeastern Pennsylvania led to contamination at nearby private water wells.

The nine-member city council in Colorado’s second largest city, Colorado Springs (pop. 416,000), voted unanimously Wednesday to invoke a 60-day moratorium on oil and gas drilling within the city limits. The action was taken in an emergency meeting scheduled to look at exploration and production (E&P) activity.

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

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued an emergency order against Range Resources Corp. that claims at least two drinking water wells in Parker County, TX, “have been significantly impacted by…methane contamination” from its oil and gas production facilities in the region.