US Study Casts Pall over BC’s Shale Gas Biz: Despite industry safety assurances, EPA finds hydraulic fracturing fluids in drinking water

US Study Casts Pall over BC’s Shale Gas Biz: Despite industry safety assurances, EPA finds hydraulic fracturing fluids in drinking water by Andrew Nikiforuk, December 9, 2011, TheTyee.ca
After finding elevated levels of methane and diesel fuel in domestic Pavillion water wells in 2010, the EPA installed two deep groundwater monitoring wells to determine if the contamination was coming from deep or shallow sources. The EPA’s 121-page report found evidence of both. High levels of benzene, xylenes and gasoline and diesel compounds were detected in groundwater from shallow monitoring wells near industry pits for disposing of drilling and fracking fluids. In the deep groundwater monitoring wells the EPA discovered a brew of toxic chemicals commonly used in hydraulic fracturing. The contaminants included benzene, toluene, ethyl-benzene, and xylenes (BTEX), diesel oil, which is used to make a liquid gel, heavy aromatic petroleum naptha, a solvent, and tri-ethylene glycol, another solvent. “When considered together with other lines of evidence, the data indicates likely impact to ground water that can be explained by hydraulic fracturing,” said the EPA report. Furthermore there didn’t appear to be solid rock barriers “to stop upward vertical migration of aqueous constituents of hydraulic fracturing in the event of excursion from fractures.”

The EPA also detected methane in both monitoring wells and local domestic water wells that came directly from the gas zone being fractured by EnCana. … Earlier this year Alberta’s energy regulator, the Energy Resources and Conservation Board, admitted that hydraulic fracturing could contaminate “useable water aquifers” with toxic chemicals in shallow zones and “is a recognized risk that must be managed because the fracturing operation is nearer the base of groundwater.” [Emphasis added]

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