For the first time the E.P.A. and announced finding chemicals used in fracking fluid in well water around the town of Pavillion in central Wyoming.
Gas-Fracking Chemicals Found in WY Aquifer
By Jim Efstathiou Jr. - Dec 8, 2011 1:56 PM CT
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said for the first time it found chemicals used in extracting natural gas through hydraulic fracturing in a drinking-water aquifer in west-central Wyoming.
Samples taken from two deep water-monitoring wells near a gas field in Pavillion, Wyoming, showed synthetic chemicals such as glycols and alcohols “consistent with gas production and hydraulic-fracturing fluids,” the agency said today in an e- mailed statement.
The EPA dug two deep monitoring wells into the aquifer and found “compounds likely associated with gas-production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” according to today’s statement. Levels of the chemicals in the deep wells are “well above” acceptable standards under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the agency said.
This EPA finding comes 15 months after the Federal Government warned residents of Pavillion to use alternative sources for their drinking water.
Feds Warn Residents Near Wyoming Gas Drilling Sites Not to Drink Their Water
by Abrahm Lustgarten
ProPublica, Sept. 1, 2010
The federal government is warning residents in a small Wyoming town with extensive natural gas development not to drink their water, and to use fans and ventilation when showering or washing clothes in order to avoid the risk of an explosion.
The announcement accompanied results from a second round of testing and analysis in the town of Pavillion by Superfund investigators for the Environmental Protection Agency. Researchers found benzene, metals, naphthalene, phenols and methane in wells and in groundwater. They also confirmed the presence of other compounds that they had tentatively identified last summer and that may be linked to drilling activities.
We can expect the Gas Fracking industry to trot out the four dogs of the chemical industry. This interview from Democracy Now explains how the four dogs of the chemical industry works.
AMY GOODMAN: Let me get some responses from industry groups. After the Department of Health and Human Services listed styrene in its 12th Report on Carcinogens, the Styrene Information and Research Center issued a statement saying, quote, "The designation is completely unjustified by the latest science and resulted from a flawed process that focuses on only those data that support a cancer concern, and in the case of styrene ignored the preponderance of data that fail to suggest a cancer concern for this substance." Jennifer Sass, your response?
JENNIFER SASS: Yeah. You know, this is part of what public health people sort of call the "four dog defense," you know, and it’s sort of the four dogs that the industry puts in the fight. And you see these tricks over and over again. They were probably first developed by the tobacco industry, and they’ve been carried through with asbestos and all the other toxic chemicals.
So the first is, you know, "My dog doesn’t bite. My dog isn’t harmful." And that’s the first line of defense, is to deny that the chemical is harmful at all. So, both styrene and formaldehyde industry have done this.
The second one is, "Well, OK, my dog bites. The evidence is there. I can’t deny it anymore. But it didn’t bite you. You’re not exposed. So don’t worry about it. You’re still safe. It causes some cancers in lab rats, but you’re not exposed to my chemical."
Then we start finding it in our environment. We find it in our food, in our water, in our air, and in people’s bodies with biomonitoring. And then the chemical industry will say, "OK, my dog bites. It bit you. You’re exposed. But it didn’t hurt you. Don’t worry." And the arguments there go something like, "Well, it causes cancers in lab rats, but those lab rats are different than people," for differences that are hard actually to explain for the industry. "And so, don’t worry about it. Jut because it causes cancers in lab animals, don’t worry. You’re safe. Even though you have it in your body, your families, it’s in your food, in your drinking water, it’s contaminating the air you breathe, don’t sweat it."
And then, what they might say at the end is, "Well, OK"—you know, really when they’re pushed with the evidence, they’ll say, "OK, my dog bit you, and it hurt you, but it was your fault." And this might be something like, "OK, my chemical causes cancer. Yes, you’re exposed to my chemical, but that your levels are too low." And that’s sort of the stage that they’re at here, Amy. So with the formaldehyde industry, they’re saying, "Well, you know, these studies of tens of thousands of workers that are exposed to formaldehyde over a working lifetime and have cancers"—not only of the nose and throat, but also of the blood and bone marrow, of leukemias and lymphomas, which is what the industry is trying to deny—they say, "Well, those workers were exposed at much higher levels, and you’re not exposed to those high levels."
But actually, when people are exposed, they’re exposed even when they’re children or infants, because a lot of that formaldehyde is in your home. And the indoor levels are actually much higher than the outdoor levels, because the fumes are emitted from a lot of that particle board and plywood and composites that furniture and other things in your home are made of. So, it’s a real problem, because pregnant women are exposed. People are exposed, therefore, pre-birth, early in childhood. If people live in the homes, they may spend really most of the day in the home, and so vulnerable periods of their development they’re exposed to these chemicals. And that’s much more serious, in a lot of ways, than an adult healthy male worker.
DemocracyNow.org.
In the past decade fracking has become a common practice in the natural gas industry stretching across wide swaths of the U.S. People in those areas need to become aware of the potential downsides from the fracking boom. One of the most critical is the threat of contamination of their aquifers.