Bush Administration Defies Congressional Mandate to Study Harmful Effects of Gas Drilling on Drinking Water and Western Waterway

Conservationists Challenge Administration's Failure to Disclose Impacts

San Francisco, CA-Feb. 7. WildEarth Guardians, the Sierra Club, and Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action are fighting to protect wild places and communities from a potentially dangerous form of coalbed gas development. The U.S. Department of Interior is currently approving thousands of new natural gas wells in coalbeds in the West, but the agency has failed to study how the drilling affects drinking water and waterways in New Mexico, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota and Utah.

Today, in an effort to force the Interior Department to study the impacts of drilling WildEarth Guardians, Sierra Club, and Rocky Mountain Clean Air Action filed suit in U.S. Federal District Court in San Francisco.

The 2005 Energy Policy Act mandated that Interior Department enter into an agreement with the National Academy of Sciences to complete by August 8, 2006 the study on a controversial and harmful method of extracting natural gas called "fracking." A year and a half after the deadline, the Interior Department has refused to have the study conducted, despite recent urging by Congress.

"The Bush Administration is endangering wildlands and public health across the West by refusing to complete this study on the dangers posed to our water by the fracking process," said Robert Ukeiley, the Climate and Energy Director at WildEarth Guardians. "The U.S. Department of Interior's refusal to conduct this study demonstrates how the 'pump and drill at all cost' approach of this Administration is overriding the will of the people."

The hydraulic fracturing process, called "fracking" for short, involves injecting fluids such as diesel fuel and other toxic chemicals into the ground as a means of increasing oil and gas production from wells. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, fracking wells tend to be shallower and closer to underground sources of drinking water than conventional oil and gas production wells. Also, fracking wells actually occur in underground sources of drinking water across the country.

Additionally, the ground water pumped out of fracking wells, known as "produced water," can adversely affect the environment. Producing water depletes groundwater sources, a limited resource in the arid West. The requirement to conduct the study was included in the 2005 Energy Policy Act at the same time that Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from Safe Drinking Water Act regulation.

"Americans who live near these wells at least deserve to know how pumping chemicals into the ground affects their drinking water," said Sierra Club representative Gordon Glass. "We were promised a complete study of this process, but we still haven't seen it. Instead, we've seen the Interior Department issue thousands of new well permits."

Halliburton, which is one of the three largest oil and gas services companies providing hydraulic fracturing services, was a leading proponent of the Congressional decision to exempt fracking from Safe Drinking Water Act regulation.

The conservation groups are seeking a court order to require that the study be completed as soon as possible.

Read the complaint (PDF) (opens in new window)

Contact: WildEarth Guardians, Robert Ukeiley, 720-563-9306 Sierra Club, Kristina Johnson 415-977-5619


 

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