August 28, 2009 05:11 PM UTC

We Don't Need No Stinkin' Rules

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• by: ClubTwitty

(Another shameless self-promotion. – promoted by ClubTwitty)

COGA Western Slope Executive Director and obfuscater in chief mouthpiece Kathy Hall, whose employer is suing to overturn the State’s newly implemented oil and gas regulations, lauds the state’s oil and gas regulations in a recent column in the Post-Independent.

That’s because her employer, duplicitous as usual, wants to stop pending federal legislation to better regulate hydraulic fracturing (frac’cing).  

Now word comes from the Wyoming gaspatch of new water well contamination, and this time the U.S. EPA is on the scene–the first time that agency has done such inspections itself.  

COGA and other industry groups love to say that there have been no documented cases of contamination from frac’cing.  

The industry shills generally fail to mention that without knowledge of which chemicals may be involved it’s very difficult to trace the source of the many–and increasing–incidents of water well contamination in the vicinity of frac’cing and drilling operations, in Wyoming, in Colorado, and in gaspatches across the nation.

But the incidents are stacking up, and now the EPA is on the case.  In a fantastic letter to the editor refuting Kathy Halliburton’s Hall’s column, longtime Garfield County resident, former BLM employee, and renown Colorado sportsman Bob Elderkin notes:

The guest commentary by Kathy Hall in the Aug. 16 Post Independent reaches a new high in slanted, misleading and misinformation. It must be very galling to have to praise the Colo. Oil & Gas Conservation Commission’s new oil and gas rules – at the same time her employers are suing them in court to get the rules rescinded – in order to show the proposed new frac’ing law is not needed.

Lets look at a few of her statements such as, “… there hasn’t been a single case of contamination by hydraulic fracturing fluids …” It should be, “there hasn’t been a single case proven because the exact types and amounts of chemicals used are not released to state regulating agencies.” Case in point, the Prather spring is contaminated by benzene, but with three companies drilling nearby and all claiming they didn’t do it, how do you prove who did?

The problem is with wells being drilled close to domestic wells and no monitoring of potable aquifers required before or after drilling, who knows what is happening.

Another letter to the editor also takes Hall to task:

The problem fluids in hydraulic fracturing – fluids that exceed the drinking water standards – are benzene, naphthalene, 1-methylnapthalene, 2-methylnaphalene, aromatics and methanol. Bredehoeft estimated that fluid recovery is only 25% to 61% of the injected fluids. In undisturbed conditions, groundwater moves slowly so these contaminants will remain in an aquifer for long periods of time – years, decades or longer.

The EPA has said that the use of water-based frac’ing fluids will eliminate problems caused from the products that are currently used in “problem fluid” hydraulic fracturing. Alabama, a very Republican conservative state … has successfully regulated the composition of hydraulic fracturing fluids associated with CBM and does not allow any chemicals to exceed the drinking water standards.

…An aquifer is a large amount of water to lose. What then are we waiting for? Unusable water. Gas in our wells. No man’s land? Health problems. Contamination of the Colorado and other streams? Where are our leaders? Alabama and not Colorado?

This last question is particularly relevant, given where Colorado’s leaders are at with this issue and legislation.  The FRAC Act is co-sponsored by Diana DeGette and Jared Polis.  However, Rep. Salazar and Sens. Udall and Bennet have yet to take a position.  More troubling, the state appears to be signaling that it too opposes federal legislation, according to a recent article in the Colorado Independent:

Federal oversight by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act, as proposed by Colo. U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis in the FRAC Act, is not only redundant, Neslin said in a recent interview with the Colorado Independent, but it could force the state to divert staffing and resources from other environmental programs monitoring the oil and gas industry.

But oil and gas is an interstate commodity–and with the current glut on the market some analysts believe that North America might soon be exporting natural gas overseas. (This has communities on the coasts quite upset, facing new LNG ports which could quickly become exporting rather than importing hubs).  Federal oversight is called for and needed.  Currently oil and gas is the only industry exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, even as incidents of contamination spread.

As Bob Elderkin concludes in his letter:

Contamination is usually discovered by people getting sick. You may think natural gas is absolutely essential to your well being. But, I think the need for good drinking water will trump that.

…What we are asking is that when an upset condition occurs with aquifer contamination, the industry be required to mitigate and clean up the contamination. I know that is very expensive but that is a cost of doing business, not a burden for the taxpayer to assume.