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CONSERVATION GROUPS’ COMMENTS <br />UNCOMPAHGRE FIELD OFFICE RMP AND DEIS <br />114 <br /> <br />Abrahm Lustgarten, an investigative reporter with ProPublica, who has won the George <br />Polk Award for Environmental Reporting for his work on the dangers of natural gas drilling, <br />writes: <br /> <br />Dennis Coleman, a leading international geologist and expert on tracking <br />underground migration, says more data must be collected before anyone can say <br />for sure that drilling contaminants have made their way to water or that fracturing <br />is to blame. But Coleman also says there’s no reason to think it can’t happen. <br />Coleman’s Illinois-based company, Isotech Laboratories, has both the government <br />and the oil and gas industry as clients. He says he has seen methane gas seep <br />underground for more than seven miles from its source. If the methane can seep, <br />the theory goes, so can the fluids.323 <br /> <br />Important evidence of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing is found in <br />an EPA draft report investigating ground water contamination near Pavillion, Wyoming <br />(“Pavillion Report”).324 Among its findings, the Pavillion Report provides: <br /> <br />Elevated levels of dissolved methane in domestic wells generally increase in those <br />wells in proximity to gas production wells. Pavillion Report, at xiii. <br /> <br />Detection of high concentrations of benzene, xylenes, gasoline range organics, <br />diesel range organics, and total purgeable hydrocarbons in ground water samples <br />from shallow monitoring wells near pits indicates that pits are a source of shallow <br />ground water contamination in the area of investigation. Pits were used for <br />disposal of drilling cuttings, flowback, and produced water. There are at least 33 <br />pits in the area of investigation. When considered separately, pits represent <br />potential source terms for localized ground water plumes of unknown extent. <br />When considered as whole they represent potential broader contamination of <br />shallow ground water. Id. at 33 (emphasis added). <br /> <br />The explanation best fitting the data for the deep monitoring wells is that <br />constituents associated with hydraulic fracturing have been released into the Wind <br />River drinking water aquifer at depths above the current production zone. Id. <br />(emphasis added). <br /> <br />Although some natural migration of gas would be expected above a gas field such <br />as Pavillion, data suggest that enhanced migration of gas has occurred to ground <br />water at depths used for domestic water supply and to domestic wells. Id. at 37 <br />(emphasis added). <br /> 323 Abrahm Lustgarten, Hydrofracked? One Man’s Mystery Leads to a Backlash Against Natural <br />Gas Drilling, PROPUBLICA, February 25, 2011, available at: <br />http://www.propublica.org/article/hydrofracked-one-mans-mystery-leads-to-a-backlash-against- <br />natural-gas-drill/single. 324 EPA Draft Report, Pavillion (attached above as Exhibit 176).