The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced today (20 October) that it plans to develop standards for disposing of waste water generated by hydraulic fracturing, or ‘fracking’, a method used to extract natural gas from shale rock formations by cracking rock with with high pressure liquids.
The widespread application of fracking — with several hundred drilling sites now operating across the US — has sparked fears that groundwater could be contaminated with toxic additives from the high-pressure fluids and with gases, salts, metals or radioactive materials absorbed from the sediment and transported to the water table. Currently, drilling companies are not required to disclose the contents of all high-pressure fracturing fluids, but some companies have volunteered to share their ingredients through an online disclosure registry.
An additional concern is waste water or ‘flowback’ fluid at the drilling site which requires disposal and, consequently, can end up at municipal water treatment facilities. Water treatment plants are not typically not equipped to treat fracking waste water and as a result some surface waters have been contaminated with pollutants from the drilling process. At present, there are no national standards that regulate the disposal of this contaminated water. The EPA says it will now begin to work with ‘industry and public health groups’ to develop standards by 2014.
Meanwhile, some witnesses testifying before a Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee panel this afternoon argued that one of fracking’s greatest impacts — at least in the Eastern United States — is not so much the fluid waste as the pollution due to erosion caused by well construction and operation. The Marcellus Shale Formation, which lies below the states of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia, is one of the largest natural gas reservoirs in the US. The mountainous landscape of the region is particularly vulnerable to the polluting effects of erosion, as freed sediments quickly enter surface streams, contaminating coldwater habitats and drinkwater sources, according to the panel’s witnesses.
Sometime next year, the EPA plans to release the first of two reports from its study on the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, on drinking water and groundwater. In 2010, Congress directed the EPA to examine the best-available science on the connection between fracking and human and environmental health and to vet their findings in a peer-reviewed process. As part of the study, the EPA has asked 18 oil and gas companies to voluntarily submit data on the design and operation of their natural gas wells. The second report is expected in 2014.