Matt McClain/The Washington Post – The headquarters of the United States Environmental Protection Agency in Washington, D.C.
By Mark Drajem, Published: July 29
Drilling for natural gas caused “significant damage” to drinking-water aquifers in a Pennsylvania town at the center of a fight over the safety of hydraulic fracturing, according to a report prepared by a federal official.
The previously unreleased document from an employee at the Environmental Protection Agency’s regional office found that drilling or fracking, in which water, sand and chemicals are shot underground to free trapped gas, caused methane to leak into domestic water wells in Dimock, Pa. The findings contradict Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., which drilled in the town and said the explosive methane gas was naturally occurring.
“Methane is released during the drilling and perhaps during the fracking process and other gas well work,” according to the undated slide show prepared by the EPA coordinator in Dimock, who is not identified, for other agency officials. The report, obtained by Bloomberg from critics of fracking, is based on a chemical analysis of methane in wells. The EPA said the findings in the presentation are preliminary and more study is needed.