American Oil and Gas Reporter - January 2017 - 34

EPA Study On Fracturing

Industry Lambasts Reverse Of Course
By Bill Campbell
WASHINGTON-Industry sources have
been quick to ridicule and disparage the
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's
final report about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources, calling it "beyond absurd" and "a
sop to anti-fracturing activists."
On Dec. 13, EPA released the final version of its five-year study into the impacts
of hydraulic fracturing on groundwater,
Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in
the United States. The report may be accessed at www.epa.gov/hfstudy.
In it, EPA deletes its top-line finding in
the preliminary report released in June
2015 that there was no evidence fracturing had led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources. Instead,
the agency now says its report "provides
scientific evidence that hydraulic fracturing activities can impact drinking water resources in the United States under some
circumstances."

American Petroleum Institute Upstream Director Erik Milito responds, "It
is beyond absurd for the administration to
reverse course on its way out the door.
(EPA) has walked away from nearly a
thousand published papers, technical reports and peer reviewed scientific reports demonstrating that industry practices
and trends, and regulatory programs protect water resources at every step of the
fracturing process.
"Consumers have witnessed five years
and millions of dollars expended only to
see a conclusion based in science changed
to a conclusion based in political ambiguity," Milito charges.
Tim Benson, a policy analyst at The
Heartland Institute, says, "To be clear,
nothing in the data has changed since
EPA's 2015 draft report. There is still no
evidence to support the position that fracturing contaminates drinking water. However, most likely as a sop to anti-fracturing activists, EPA decided to remove that
conclusion from the final report."
"If there was any truth to the claim that
fracturing contaminates water, EPA's

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34 THE AMERICAN OIL & GAS REPORTER

study would have found it," agrees Merrill Matthews, resident scholar at the Institute for Policy Innovation. "Instead, what
the EPA found since releasing (the draft
report) was a lot of push back from the environmental community."
Matthews compares the fracturing report with the Obama administration's
handling of the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines to say, "We have seen
this situation again and again. Politics, not
the evidence, determine this administration's findings.
"It is time for federal agencies to follow scientific evidence, not the pressure
groups," Matthews argues. "We expect
President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to head the EPA, Oklahoma Attorney
General Scott Pruitt, will do just that."
The Texas Alliance of Energy Producers contends, "EPA has little credibility on
this subject," and points to the agency's
emergency order in 2010 in Parker County, Tx., based on its belief fracturing had contaminated a shallow aquifer with methane.
"This was proven false during a formal
hearing at the Texas Railroad Commission," the Alliance recalls, adding: "EPA
has ignored the following fact: Tens of
thousands of wells have been hydrofractured in Texas. None of these activities has
resulted in groundwater aquifer contamination."
Final Report
The possibility that EPA might back
away from its original conclusions came
to light in January 2016, when its Science
Advisory Board expressed concern about
"the clarity and adequacy of support for
several major findings" (AOGR, February
2016, pg. 24).
In a news release announcing the more
than 1,200-page report, EPA says its final
report "identifies conditions under which
impacts from hydraulic fracturing activities can be more frequent or severe," but
"also identifies uncertainties and data
gaps," which is says "limited EPA's ability to fully assess impacts to drinking water resources both locally and nationally."
EPA says these conditions include:
* Water withdrawals for hydraulic
fracturing in times or areas of low water
availability;
* Spills;
* Injecting into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity;
* Injecting fluids directly into groundwater resources;
* Discharging inadequately treated
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