Seven Deadly Sins: 22 years ago there was a problem.

Under the seven deadly sin of "The Safe Drinking Water Act" Earthwork's Renee Lewis Kosnik writes:

Unfortunately, the EPA’s findings are not consistent with the numerous personal accounts of those living in oil and gas patches around the country.  Peggy Hocutt and her husband retired to their house on the river in Jefferson County, Alabama. After years of mysterious ailments affecting everyone in the area and tap water that smelled of petroleum, Mrs. Hocutt had black, jellied grease coming out of her faucets. She and many of her neighbors also had cancer. The energy company hydraulically fracturing in that area and the state of Alabama refused to admit that their aquifer had been contaminated by fracking activities. Instead, the company refused to renew their land lease and evicted them from the property. They lost their physical and mental well being, as well as a forty-year investment in their retirement home.

What is interesting to me is that the paragraph before this states:

The EPA released its final version of the Phase I study in 2004 entitled, Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs. The main finding of this study stated, “the injection of hydraulic fracturing into CBM wells poses little or no threat to Underground Sources of Drinking Water.

In other words, we hear what you are saying EPA, but we don't believe you.  I mean look what happened to Mrs. Hocutt!  Explain that EPA!

You can read about Mrs. Hocutt's situation here.  Excluding a direct link to her cancer, assuming that everything she reports is true, lets look at why this is a poor example to justify why:

Hydraulic fracturing must be regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act in order to adequately protect the United State’s drinking water supply from the harmful chemicals used during this process.

Twenty-three years ago  The Alabama State Oil & Gas Board, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, issued Permit #5946-C., to USX-Amoco Oil Production, in September, 1988.  According to Mrs. Hocutt:

When the gas well was operable, the run-off was piped directly from the site to a point and then left to run uncontrolled down a hillside gully, through a culvert, and down a ravine where it then emptied into the slough behind our boathouse.  The run-off was the color of Coca Cola, foamy, with oily streaks in it, and smelled like oil and rotten eggs.  It killed all plant life and water creatures in its path.  I never again saw another salamander, bull frog, or lily pad around our boathouse. I didn't know anything about methane gas wells at that time, but I realized if the run-off killed plant life and water creatures, it certainly posed a potential danger to the health of humans.

OK, stop right there.  Again, assuming this is true, this is a violation of the Clean Water Act.  Period.  No industry, including Oil & Gas, may discharge into waters of the United States without a permit:

As authorized by the Clean Water Act, the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program controls water pollution by regulating point sources that discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. Point sources are discrete conveyances such as pipes or man-made ditches. [I]ndustrial, municipal, and other facilities must obtain permits if their discharges go directly to surface waters. Since its introduction in 1972, the NPDES permit program is responsible for significant improvements to our Nation's water quality. (1)

[A]n NPDES permit issued for the drilling activity would need to be consistent with 40 CFR Part 435, Subpart C, which states that ‘there shall be no discharge of wastewater pollutants into navigable waters from any source associated with production, field exploration, drilling, well completion, or well treatment (i.e., produced water, drilling muds, drill cuttings, and produced sand). (2)

That requirement has been on the books since 1972.  No additional regulation under the SDWA would have changed the situation for Mrs. Hocutt.

Assuming that what Mrs. Hocutt said is true, the issue was in violation of the CWA and is not a SDWA issue.  The situation described is alleged contamination of surface water that led to the alleged contamination of drinking water from her well.

The SDWA does not regulate private groundwater wells.  It regulates public water systems as well as underground injection wells.  This is where the issue with oil & gas comes to a head with folks like Earthworks:

‘Underground injection’ is defined as the “subsurface emplacement of fluids by well injection.” In 2005, legislative amendments made clear that the SDWA does not regulate hydraulic fracturing operations. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 amended the SDWA to exclude from the definition of underground injection “the underground injection of fluids or propping agents (other than diesel fuels) pursuant to hydraulic fracturing operations relating to oil, gas, or geothermal activities.” Many sources critical of the exception refer to it as the “Halliburton Loophole.” Thus, with the exception of fracing using diesel fluids, the SDWA does not impose direct regulation. (3)

The situation that happened to Mrs. Halcutt 22 years ago is not an appropriate example to use for explaining why hydraulic fracturing should fall under the Underground Injection Control (UIC) program.  Surface water discharge contamination of underground drinking water supplies are covered under the Clean Water Act.

A more appropriate example would be this:

EPA Letter

In this case, the EPA contends that the extraction process has released methane into the drinking water wells:

As a result of investgatory work performed, the [EPA] has determined that an imminent and substantial endangerment to a public drinking wateraquifer has occured (or may occur) through methane contamination which is directly related to oil and gas production facilities under your operation.

This is a proper example to use when making a claim that compliance under the SDWA's UIC program may be necessary.  Not a surface water release that happened 22 years ago.

With this example, the question now can be posed as such:

Would the UIC program have required anything more substantive in terms of drilling, cementing, and casing than is already required of oil & gas by the Texas RRC? (see post).  Secondly, does this one case of methane entering into the drinking water indicate a problem inherent in all hydraulic fracturing wells?

But first, I need to get something off my chest...

Next Post: Dogs and Phosphoric Acid...one more time.