THE CASE AGAINST HYDROFRACKING - Hydrofracking: What Everyone Needs to Know - page 55

draulic fracturing.” 20 The multiyear study was peer reviewed by scientists, and was
among the first by the government to directly link fracking with groundwater pol-
lution. It was considered a “blockbuster” by fracking opponents. 21

But then the

agency seemed to back off from its conclusions.
The EPA's investigation began in 2008, when Pavillion residents complained
that their water had turned brown and undrinkable. The EPA drilled its own wells
near hydrofracking operations, and in sampling the groundwater detected meth-
ane and “high concentrations of benzenes, xylenes, gasoline range organics, diesel
range organics and … hydrocarbons in ground water samples … [and] water near-
saturated in methane.” Benzene was found in one well at concentrations of 246 mi-
crograms per liter, far beyond the legal standard of 5 micrograms per liter. 22
EPA scientists tried to find other potential sources for the pollution, but con-
cluded that the organic compounds must have been “the result of direct mixing of
hydraulic fracking fluids with ground water,” and advised locals to stop drinking
from their wells. 23
EnCana Corporation, the Canadian company that drilled the wells, and North
America's second-largest producer of natural gas (after ExxonMobil), denied its
wells had polluted Pavillion's water. A few energy-policy analysts agreed, saying
the EPA's evidence was “incomplete.” Nonetheless EnCana's shares dropped over
6 percent on the New York Stock Exchange, and the incident hit other companies,
such as Chesapeake Energy Corporation, which fell 5.1 percent. 24
Later, after complaints by industry and Republican legislators, the EPA softened
its position on the Pavillion case and said it would await the results of a peer review
of its science. In June 2013, the agency abruptly announced that it would discon-
tinue the peer review and turn the study over to the state of Wyoming. 25 In what
would appear to be a conflict of interest, the state's research will be funded by
EnCana, the company at the center of the dispute. Industry boosters said the EPA's
decision was simply a long-awaited recognition that the agency had overreached in
Pavillion. Opponents, however, were aghast, and charged that the EPA was duck-
ing its responsibilities. “The EPA just put a 'kick me' sign on it,” blogged John
Hanger, a Democratic gubernatorial candidate in Pennsylvania, and the former sec-
retary of the state's Department of Environmental Protection. “Its critics from all
quarters will now oblige.” 26
Indeed, fracking opponents detected an unsettling trend, according to
ProPublica. In 2012 the EPA's budget was cut 17 percent, to below 1998 levels,
while sequestration cuts starved research funds for cases like the one in Pavillion. 27