As regular readers of the Waterblogger know, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board (SAB) is busy finalizing its peer review of the agency’s draft report: “Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources.” If you haven’t been reading Waterblogger regularly the original article is below.
I’ve been following the SAB’s discussions through the public teleconferences. The first was on February 1, 2016. Consequently a second draft of their 133 page peer review report was issued on February 16, 2016. A second conference call was held on March 7, 2016. These are long conference calls. The March 7 conference call went some seven hours. The first two hours were dedicated to registered speakers. Anybody can be a registered speaker. All you have to do is apply. You get three minutes. Very little scientific work is presented by these speakers. Most speakers are representatives of environmental or industrial trade groups touting their positions. Sometimes there are company reps and consultants who have additional reports or data for submission which help inform the peer review. And then there are a whole lot of very angry and emotional people from areas where oil and gas development has occurred who think they are being poisoned by hydraulic fracturing.
It was nice to see the Science Advisory Board’s respectful questions to the registered speakers and their acknowledgement of people’s concerns about the impacts of hydraulic fracturing on their drinking water. It was less nice to listen to the SAB members parse the words in EPA’s report. Their biggest concern is over the meaning of EPA’s finding: “we did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” The “mechanisms” being referenced are the whole industrial process involved in hydraulic fracturing from storage and mixing of chemicals on-site, to well construction, waste disposal, and the actual injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids which breaks subsurface rock in order to get better flow of oil and gas. An SAB member actually read out loud the definition of the words “systematic” and “widespread” used in EPA’s finding. This sentence in the report has been very controversial and was seized upon by both industry and environmental groups to support an agenda or detract from the validity of the report. So this SAB decided to make it a center of controversy too.
In the SAB’s peer review comments, they asked EPA to support their finding through scientific evidence contained within their report on hydraulic fracturing. However, there was a dissenting opinion to the peer review comment by one of the SAB members who stated in writing:
“The conclusion by the EPA in the June 2015 draft Assessment report stating “We did not find evidence that hydraulic fracturing mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States” is accurate, clear, concise, unambiguous, and supportable with the facts EPA has reviewed.”
I would wholly agree with the dissenter. As the conference call laboriously progressed, it became clear some of the SAB members had also come to the same conclusion. The EPA didn’t say there were no cases of impacts on drinking water from hydraulic fracturing. The EPA just said based on their analysis of available data, impacts on drinking water as a result of hydraulic fracturing were not widespread or a regular occurrence. If you read further in EPA’s report, they state there are localized cases of drinking water contamination after hydrofracturing has occurred in an area. These cases have tended to be in areas where there were spills, poor cementing of casing, or poor waste disposal practices. EPA further states in their report that there are many existing mechanisms which could cause contamination of groundwater during hydraulic fracturing:
“we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources. These mechanisms include water withdrawals in times of, or in areas with, low water availability; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and produced water; fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources; below ground migration of liquids and gases; and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater.”
I hope the SAB can come to some conclusions and finish their review comments as the result of the call. The EPA process allows for dissenting opinions and they are generally included in Appendixes to an SAB’s review. Further discussions will just continue to delay a final report from EPA on the impact of hydraulic fracturing to drinking water sources.
It is not unusual to have differing views of what conclusions can be reached based on data from scientific research. Generally such differing views are a result of uncertainty in the data or a poor presentation of the research results. The latter case seems to be what is driving this SAB’s elaborate discussions involving the very meaning of words. It’s time for this SAB to wrap it up and send their peer review forward.