Colorado oil and gas regulators have been in touch with their counterparts in Wyoming about a new Environmental Protection Agency study there regarding contaminants in drinking water in a drilling field, a state official says.
Dave Neslin, director of the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, spoke about the EPA study last week at the Northwest Colorado Oil & Gas Forum in Rifle. The study found contaminants possibly related to drilling and hydraulic fracturing of EnCana Oil & Gas (USA) oil and gas wells.
“This is something that we have been following and we will be looking into. It’s more complicated than the press has suggested and the connection to frac’ing is not as clear as some of the press reports have suggested,” Neslin said.
The EPA found or tentatively identified contaminants in 11 of 39 water wells it studied in Pavillion, Wyo. These include methane in eight wells, and 2-butoxyethanol phosphate in three.
EnCana says 2-butoxyethanol phosphate is not used in fracturing. The EPA says 2-butoxyethanol, or 2-BE, which is a foaming agent used in fracturing and also is used in household cleaning products and other applications, could react with naturally occurring phosphates to create 2-BE phosphate. However, the EPA has found no direct link between water contamination in Pavillion and fracturing or other oil and gas activities.
Don Chaplin, who lives east of Silt, asked Neslin about the study. In an interview later, Chaplin said Colorado’s oil and gas rules may be adequate to protect water supplies now, but not necessarily in the future. He considers the EPA study “perhaps a wakeup call” and said the state should consider revising its rules as it learns more from the Wyoming situation.
“I don’t want my well compromised, nor do I want any of the water resources in the area compromised by natural gas exploration,” he said.
Neslin said several new Colorado oil and gas rules are designed to address concerns surrounding water supply protection. These include requirements to report results of pressure testing related to fracturing operations, abide by minimum operational setbacks to safeguard public drinking water supplies, and keep chemical inventories that must be made available under appropriate circumstances.
Pre-existing rules regarding well casing and cementing also are designed to protect groundwater, Neslin said.
The chemical inventory requirement applies when more than 500 pounds of a chemical are used or stored on a well site. State oil and gas commissioner Tresi Houpt said Colorado may have to evaluate whether that threshold is low enough to be adequate for some chemicals.
Email DENNIS WEBB
Comments
By Tim Bott
Sep 15, 2009 10:36 AM | Link to this
Thanks for the sample.
By jon
Sep 15, 2009 6:02 AM | Link to this
Agree with the other posters. We should be studying and monitoring these processes to ensure that they don't contaminate ground water. This study in Wyoming should continue and when it is complete we should hear the results, but so far this study, like dozens before it, has found no link between hydraulic fracturing and ground water contamination.
By Willie
Sep 14, 2009 3:31 PM | Link to this
Wakeup call ... ? Yet another EPA study that finds no link between fracing and contaminates in drinking water is hardly a wakeup call. Once again, the special interest groups are playing fast-n-loose with the facts. Quite frankly, I'm not surprised when I read it anymore. Until they learn that the age of using unverifiable information is over, they will continue to lose credibility.
We all want safe drinking water. We also want a robust economy. There is no evidence in the EPA study that fracing is responsible for 2-BE phosphate being in a the water wells.
If our regulations need to be revised, it would be toward making natural gas drilling affordable in Colorado. We can all benefit by stripping away useless regulations that do nothing to protect our water or wildlife.
By jenny
Sep 10, 2009 9:38 AM | Link to this
Hydraulic Fracing has been performed over one million times during the last 60 years and there has NEVER been a documented case of fracing contaminating groundwater. The head of the oil and gas in Colorado said the connection the press is making is not clear. Could it be that the press has an agenda and is looking for any excuse to link fracing to a case of contamination? The press should report the FACTS not repeat rumors. Find another whipping boy, ed, fracing is a proven, time-test, safe procedure.
By madisonj
Sep 10, 2009 9:16 AM | Link to this
The press is jumping all over a sensational story, but like Neslin said, it's much more complicated than that. We need to let the scientists and engineers do their study and research before our state and federal legislators fall all over themselves to try to "fix" the problem. Like Reagan said, the nine scariest words in America are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help."
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