The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a final report on December 13, 2016 entitled: “Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas: Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States” (EPA-600-R-16-236Fa). The report draws the final conclusions of the multi-year scientific research program conducted by the EPA’s Office of Research and Development to determine what (if any) impacts hydraulic fracturing activities have on drinking water sources.
Today’s press release from EPA states:
“Data gaps and uncertainties limited EPA’s ability to fully assess the potential impacts on drinking water resources both locally and nationally. Generally, comprehensive information on the location of activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle is lacking, either because it is not collected, not publicly available, or prohibitively difficult to aggregate. In places where we know activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle have occurred, data that could be used to characterize hydraulic fracturing-related chemicals in the environment before, during, and after hydraulic fracturing were scarce. Because of these data gaps and uncertainties, as well as others described in the assessment, it was not possible to fully characterize the severity of impacts, nor was it possible to calculate or estimate the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle.”
If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know I have been following the interim scientific reports and support documents released by EPA on the subject. This is a disappointing conclusion after the years of waiting for this final assessment to be completed. EPA does make some conclusions on what hydraulic fracturing activities might contribute to contamination of water. They include the following:
- Water withdrawals for hydraulic fracturing in times or areas of low water availability, particularly in areas with limited or declining groundwater resources;
- Spills during the management of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;
- Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;
- Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;
- Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water resources; and
- Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination of groundwater resources.
These are what I would call “self-evident” conclusions, which hardly needed years of scientific research to verify. For my readers, I will read through the entire 666 page report and see if I can’t tease anything new to report from it. Look for my analysis is the next few weeks.