© Reuters/Tim ShafferA Dimock, Pennsylvania resident who did not want to be identified pours a glass of water taken from his well after the start of natural gas drilling in Dimock, Pennsylvania, March 7, 2009.
New York/Washington - Federal regulators are considering trucking fresh water to households in a Pennsylvania town where residents say wells have been polluted by hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for natural gas.
Only a month after declaring water in Dimock safe to drink, the Environmental Protection Agency is reconsidering action after residents supplied the EPA with hundreds of pages of data that link water pollution to fracking.
Two residents of Dimock, a town of some 1,400 in the northeast corner of Pennsylvania, told Reuters that the EPA said water would be delivered on Friday, but the agency indicated it was still considering the issue.
"No decision has been made by EPA to provide alternate sources of water," an EPA spokeswoman said in an email on Friday. She added that the agency was trying to understand the situation in Dimock where state regulators recently halted deliveries of fresh water.
If the EPA delivers water to the village, it would be the clearest sign yet regulators are concerned about the effect of drilling on drinking water there.
Dimock may become pivotal in a national debate about the environmental impact of fracking, the drilling technique that could unlock decades' worth of natural gas trapped in shale deposits, but which environmentalists say contaminates water supplies.
On Thursday, the EPA said it was considering doing its own tests on drinking water there after reviewing the evidence provided by residents that suggested that water could be more polluted than they realized.
Dimock residents began complaining of cloudy, foul-smelling water in 2008 after Cabot Oil & Gas Corp began fracking, which involves injecting chemical-laced water and sand into wells to release gas in shale rock deep below the surface.
Environmentalists say fracking pollutes fresh water as fluids seep from drilling wells into aquifers and other supply sources.
Cabot had trucked water to a dozen Dimock households for three years until November when state regulators agreed it could stop. Now residents are onto the last of their water. Some are using pondwater for showers.
Cabot denies polluting local water supplies.
"We still feel very comfortable that the water meets safe drinking water standards," said Cabot spokesman George Stark. "We have a lot of data on well water there."
As fracking increases in the United States and contributes to an energy boom, the EPA is conducting a national study to determine its impacts.
A recent EPA draft report showed that harmful chemicals from fracking fluids were likely present in a Wyoming aquifer near the town of Pavillion.
Industry denies that fracking, which is being done across the country, poses a threat to drinking water.
Federal Agency Cancels Water Delivery to Dimock
Written by
Michael Rubinkan
Associated Press
[Link]
ALLENTOWN, Pa. -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency abruptly changed its mind Saturday about delivering fresh water to residents of a northeastern Pennsylvania village where residential wells were found to be tainted by a natural gas drilling operation.
Only 24 hours after promising them water, EPA officials informed residents of Dimock that a tanker truck wouldn't be coming after all. The about-face left residents furious, confused and let down -- and, once again, scrambling for water for bathing, washing dishes and flushing toilets.
Agency officials would not explain why they reneged on their promise, or say whether water would be delivered at some point.
"We are actively filling information gaps and determining next steps in Dimock. We have made no decision at this time to provide water," EPA spokeswoman Betsaida Alcantara said in an e-mail to The Associated Press.
It's not clear how many wells in the rural community of Dimock Township were affected by the drilling. The state has found that at least 18 residential water we is not responsible for the pollution and that the water is safe.
Eleven families who sued Cabot expected water from the EPA to arrive either Friday or Saturday. They have been without a reliable source of water since Cabot won permission from state environmental regulators to halt deliveries more than a month ago.
The homeowners say their wells are tainted with methane gas and toxic chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, a technique in which water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground to free natural gas from dense rock deposits.
Dimock resident Victoria Switzer said there have been several false promises over the years, but the most recent really stings.
"How much do the people here have to endure?" she said. "I'm very pessimistic now how these regulatory agencies are working."
It's not that she and her neighbors want a big payout. All they are asking for is clean water, with many working daily trying to get help, Switzer said.
"It's so stressful," she said. "This is just cruel and unusual punishment.'
Dimock resident Craig Sautner said an EPA staffer in Philadelphia told him Saturday the water delivery was canceled. He said the EPA staffer, on-scene coordinator Rich Fetzer, would not explain why.
"You can't be playing with people's lives like this," said Sautner, whose well was polluted in September 2008, shortly after Cabot began drilling in the area.
Sautner and the other homeowners had been relying on deliveries of bulk water paid for by anti-drilling groups, but the last delivery was Monday, and some of them ran out.
After the EPA delivery fell through Saturday, the environmental group Water Defense, founded by actor Mark Ruffalo, said it would send a tanker from Washingtonville, N.Y., on Sunday to replenish the residents' supply.
Dimock has become a focal point in the national debate over the so-called fracking method, which has allowed energy companies to tap previously inaccessible reservoirs of natural gas while raising concerns about its possible health and environmental consequences. The industry says the technique is safe.
Gas drilling companies have flocked in recent years to the Marcellus Shale, a massive rock formation underlying New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia that's believed to hold the nation's largest deposit of natural gas. Pennsylvania has been the center of activity, with thousands of wells drilled in the past few years.
The latest twist in the three-year-old Dimock saga left residents with plenty of questions, but no answers.
"What happened? Who had the power here? Who had the power to change their minds? Was it the governor? Was it somebody from Washington? Was it Cabot? What happened? We don't know. We're really confused," said Wendy Seymour, an organic garlic farmer.
Seymour said an EPA official in Philadelphia told her Friday that she could expect a delivery. On Saturday, another EPA official called her and "apologized for the confusion" and said EPA was still assessing the situation.
Claire Sandberg, executive director of Water Defense, said the EPA owed them an explanation.
"It's tragic to see the EPA raise these people's hopes and then dash them, to see the EPA suggest they were beginning to accept their responsibility to protect the public, and then back out a few hours later when these people are so desperate," she said.
Staff writer Debbie Swartz contributed to this report.