DeGette Calls for Rigorous Hydraulic Fracturing Study by EPA

WASHINGTON - Today, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette (CO-01) urged Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Gina McCarthy to conduct a more thorough undertaking than the EPA's initial draft assessment of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water resources.

"The American people deserve to know how their drinking water could be affected by hydraulic fracturing," said Rep. DeGette. "But instead of an answer to that question, they are being handed a report that lacks scientific rigor. Without access to well site data and prospective studies of hydraulic fracturing operations this assessment cannot draw conclusions of any significant value."

"The limitations of this study are not due to a failure of the EPA to perform thorough scientific research, but rather they are due to constraints in their ability to access necessary data. I have advocated for years to increase disclosure requirements of all hydraulic fracturing fluid data and this study's limitations all but prove the necessity of these requirements. This study's limitations demonstrate clearly that the safety of our drinking water cannot simply rely on industry's willingness to share either information on the harmful chemicals they use or provide access to the sites they are used at. I urge the EPA investigators to continue their investigation of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water. They can rest assured knowing my work to provide them the tools to fully conduct their investigation is far from over."

The EPA's Draft Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources was commissioned in 2009 by Rep. DeGette and former Rep. Maurice Hinchey. It was commissioned in order to provide a substantive, scientific assessment of hydraulic fracturing to better inform policy decisions.

10/29/2015

The Honorable Gina McCarthy

Administrator

Environmental Protection Agency

1200 Pennsylvania Ave NW

Washington, DC 20460

Re: Draft Assessment of the Potential Impacts of Hydraulic Fracturing for Oil and Gas on Drinking Water Resources

Dear Administrator McCarthy:

Thank you for undertaking an assessment of the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on our drinking water resources. Former Representative Maurice Hinchey and I secured funding for this study in 2009, and I have been carefully watching its progress since. It is important for the American people and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to fully understand the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on human health and the environment. As a representative of a western state with limited water resources, any threat to drinking water is of concern.

EPA found in this assessment that while there are mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities could impact drinking water resources, the practice has not led to widespread, systemic impacts to the drinking water of the United States. This characterization of the overall impact of hydraulic fracturing, however accurate, is not particularly useful to policymakers and does not add to our scientific understanding. Rather, the draft assessment's value lies in its research to characterize currently little understood or unknown pathways to contamination of drinking water from hydraulic fracturing. Even in these areas, however, EPA's assessment has serious limitations because agency researchers were stymied in their attempts to gather new data.

The report makes clear that "the limited amount of data collected before and during hydraulic fracturing activities reduces the ability to determine whether hydraulic fracturing affected drinking water resources in cases of alleged contamination."[1] But it fails to mention that EPA's findings were limited due to obstruction by oil and gas companies. Their obstruction prevented EPA from directly observing the hydraulic fracturing lifecycle for research purposes, as well as collecting any data at those sites. Oil and gas companies initially agreed to work with EPA on prospective studies as outlined in the assessment's work plan, but ultimately did not grant EPA access to well sites to gather data and samples prospectively.[2] The lack of industry cooperation is disappointing but not surprising.

EPA also planned retrospective case studies to investigate reported instances of drinking water contamination by hydraulic fracturing.[3] These studies were completed but not included in the draft assessment and were instead published separately. It is unclear why these highly anticipated elements of EPA's research were removed from the draft assessment and are now not part of the assessment's public review and comment. Yet again, a significant area of research was cut from the draft assessment, and the utility of the draft assessment was circumscribed.

EPA also sought to identify the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing and assess how spills might affect drinking water. EPA identified 1,076 different chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing fluids, with 147 identified as significantly toxic, based on an analysis of disclosures to FracFocus.[4] As an advocate of disclosure of all hydraulic fracturing fluid data and as a lead cosponsor of the Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act, I would be remiss not to point out that this portion of EPA's analysis is also limited not only by what chemicals well operators claim as confidential business information, but also more broadly by what companies have chosen to voluntarily disclose in some states. Again, EPA's ability to study the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing is at the mercy of what the industry chooses to divulge.

The limitations of this assessment for policymakers are not for lack of attempts by EPA to initiate new research that would expand our understanding of hydraulic fracturing. A recently published study in the Proceedings of the National Academies that implicated hydraulic fracturing fluids in groundwater contamination reckoned that "the public cannot ascertain the cause of most shale gas-related problems because the full datasets are often not released publicly and explained."[5] I remain concerned that EPA does not know and cannot estimate the potential impacts of drinking water contamination due to hydraulic fracturing. The assessment identifies several mechanisms by which a spill, leak, or migration of hydraulic fracturing fluids could potentially contaminate drinking water, but it does not evaluate how these events would affect human health and the environment.[6]

EPA's report should more clearly emphasize that America's drinking water resources are at risk from potential spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids, and that EPA is unable to clearly track these potential impacts due to insufficient reporting requirements. The lack of data to inform this high-profile assessment demonstrates how little we know about this widespread practice, and highlights the need for more sophisticated, independent research in order to gain the understanding of hydraulic fracturing that policymakers need. I will continue to work for changes in current law to give EPA the tools they need to make a more significant assessment of the impacts of hydraulic fracturing. In the meantime, I urge EPA to use every tool available to enlarge to our scientific understanding of hydraulic fracturing as it works toward finalizing this assessment.