Part Three of a four-part series by Wes Wilson, former Environmental Engineer for the EPA. 

In this series, Wilson presents his answers to six challenging questions that were asked by students in a Pennsylvania middle school science class attended by his nephew.

4. Why are many people still in doubt of the safety of fracking when the EPA claims that it is safe?

Perhaps you are referring to the case last year in Dimock, Pennsylvania, where EPA tested the water in people homes and found their water to be safe.  Dr. Colborn and I have studied EPA’s test results and found that the EPA did not consider recent science that shows low levels of hydrocarbons to be unsafe.  Dr. Ron Bishop, a professor at the City University of New York, reviewed the EPA test data from Dimock wells and he found it was premature of EPA to conclude these wells are safe.  Dr. Bishop said:

“One-third of the wells (20 of 59 wells tested) are contaminated with methane at levels of concern to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection and the US Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, with methane concentrations up to 69 parts per million: well within concentration ranges which can be ignited and/or detonated.  In half of the water wells (32 of 59), oil and grease were detected but not quantified, and 2-methoxyethanol was similarly found in over a third of the wells (22 of 59). Overall, these observations suggest that many of these homeowners’ water wells are significantly contaminated with a variety of pollutants in concentrations which are of concern to public health professionals.”

Last month I traveled to Dimock, Pennsylvania, along with Yoko Ono and Sean Lennon who sponsor “Artist Against Fracking.”  We went to get a first-hand look at what fracking and drilling are doing there.  Some residents say fracking has caused their well water to become contaminated with dark sediment and make it smell of petroleum.  Other residents there say that nearby fracking has not harmed them and they appreciate the new economic opportunities that drilling has brought to their community. 

What I learned on this trip is the special vulnerability that fracking creates in the narrow stream valleys near Dimock.  Any toxic spill is likely to harm the ground water which is so close to the surface and the narrow valleys do not offer proper air dispersion of the toxic gases that result from the fracking process.  Seeing once rural homes just across the road from the large, noisy compressors stations is not something I would want in my community.

Here’s what the Bloomberg Press reported about the “Artist Against Fracking” ^[1] trip to Dimock: “The bus trip’s celebrity plumage was the lure to get journalists into an enclosed motor vehicle with the local activists and a retired U.S. Environmental Protection Agency official named Wes Wilson.  In 2004, Wilson sought whistleblower protection after an agency study of hydraulic fracturing in coal-bed methane deposits concluded that the chemicals the industry used are toxic but that they posed no risks — a paradox that drove him to Congress and the EPA Inspector General’s office.  The next year, Congress exempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act, essentially shutting down the issue for a time, he said.  Last year came the EPA’s statement declaring drinking water safe in Dimock. “EPA has failed here at Dimock,” said Wilson, an environmental engineer. “It has walked away from Dimock.”

EPA is now conducting a nationwide study on the effects of fracking on drinking water, but results won’t be available until 2014.^[2]  However, EPA’s national study won’t consider the toxic air problem.  EPA unfortunately has decided it will only investigate potential contamination of drinking water by fracking.

The state of New York and my state of Colorado both are poised to conduct health effect studies on fracking that will evaluate the air toxic problem.

Next installment: Do you believe that there is a safer, more eco-friendly method of natural gas extraction that could replace fracking? If so, how would this method work?”