Former EPA Lead Investigator in Pavillion Releases Study Linking Shallow Fracking to Shallow Groundwater Contamination in Wyoming

Oil & Natural Gas / Conventional Oil & Gas Resources / Production Technology and Hydraulic Fracturing

Date posted: 04/08/16

Benjamin Storrow reports that more than four years after he penned the explosive report linking fracking to contaminated drinking water outside of Pavillion, Dominic DiGiulio is releasing the study he always hoped the U.S. EPA would ... A rebuttal to the years of criticism levied against federal investigators. The study by DiGiulio and fellow Stanford University researcher Robert Jackson concludes much of the alarm over the EPA 2011 draft report was warranted. Poor well construction, the proximity of shallow fracked wells to shallow drinking water sources and the prevalence of unlined disposal pits, where diesel-oil based drilling muds and other production fluids were stored for decades, bolsters the EPA initial contention that natural gas operations were responsible for a polluted aquifer east of Pavillion, they say. The researchers pored over more than 1,000 well files, including drilling and completion reports, regulatory actions and cement bond logs. The files provide a link between the chemicals listed in frack treatment reports and compounds later discovered in two EPA monitoring wells, they say. They documented impact to a shallow water resource as a result of shallow hydraulic fracturing for the first time. The researchers say the findings support calls to limit fracking at shallow depths where well stimulations are more likely to contaminate shallow drinking water supplies. Unlike many unconventional oil and gas plays, where fracking is conducted at deep intervals underground, Pavillion gas wells were drilled to the same depth as nearby water wells. No state has any restrictions on how shallow you can frack a well, Jackson said, and that needs to change, he said. The report comes as Wyoming regulators contemplate the next step in their own investigation into the Pavillion field and amid a growing barrage of criticism over the state inquiry. A draft study released by the Department of Environmental Quality in December found little evidence of issues.