EPA: Fracking doesn’t systemically pollute water

The EPA acknowledged specific instances of groundwater pollution from fracking, but ultimately said the draft study showed the threat is not endemic.

“We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States. Of the potential mechanisms identified in this report, we found specific instances where one or more mechanisms led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells. The number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured well,” the EPA report said.

Fracking, with the advent of horizontal drilling, has unleashed the U.S. shale oil and natural gas boom, turning the country into the world’s largest hydrocarbon producer. But the method, which involves injecting a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals into tight-rock formations to access oil and gas buried deep underground, has raised fears of water pollution.

The draft of the five-year-long study is sure to please drillers who had criticized previous agency findings regarding the drilling practice. Environmental groups, meanwhile, said the report doesn’t answer a number of questions about the production method. They also say the EPA investigation was hamstrung by private companies that refused to cooperate.

Tom Burke, EPA science adviser and deputy assistant administrator for the agency’s office for research and development, said that the industry was a “major source of information” and that it was “generally very cooperative.”

But Burke also noted that the EPA did discover fracking and related activities had affected drinking water and surface water supplies, despite the industry’s claims that there hasn’t ever been a documented case of water contamination from fracking. Fracking that led to poorly constructed wells, for example, led to contamination.

“There are instances where the fracking activity itself have led to well construction problems that have led to water impact,” Burke said in a call with reporters.

The oil and gas industry, however, insists fracking is safe. Drilling operations occur deep below the water table and companies insist they have improved the ways they secure wells underground and handle wastewater extracted after drilling.

“After more than five years and millions of dollars, the evidence gathered by EPA confirms what the agency has already acknowledged and what the oil and gas industry has known,” said Erik Milito, upstream group director with the American Petroleum Institute. “Hydraulic fracturing is being done safely under the strong environmental stewardship of state regulators and industry best practices.”

To be sure, environmental groups found things to like in the report as well. The EPA noted that it “found specific instances” in parts of the fracking process that “led to impacts on drinking water,” but that the number was small compared with the whole sample.

“The EPA’s water quality study confirms what millions of Americans already know — that dirty oil and gas fracking contaminates drinking water,” Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune said.

Environmental groups have charged that the oil and gas industry prevented the EPA from accessing baseline water samples that were need to test the effects of fracking before and after drilling operations. Since drilling occurred on private land, the agency couldn’t force private companies to hand over the data.

“Industry data and independent studies tell us that 1 to 6 percent of unconventional fracked wells fail immediately, meaning tens of thousands of failed wells litter our country. Despite industry’s obstruction, EPA found that fracking pollutes water in a number of ways. That’s why industry didn’t cooperate, they know fracking is an inherently risky, dirty process that doesn’t bear close, independent examination,” said Lauren Pagel, Earthworks policy director.

The EPA noted that the lack of data posed a challenge.

“This finding could reflect a rarity of effects on drinking water resources, but may also be due to other limiting factors. These factors include: insufficient pre- and post-fracturing data on the quality of drinking water resources; the paucity of long-term systematic studies; the presence of other sources of contamination precluding a definitive link between hydraulic fracturing activities and an impact; and the inaccessibility of some information on hydraulic fracturing activities and potential impacts,” the EPA said.

The study will “set the stage for a fuller discussion of the risks to the water cycle” posed by fracking, Mark Brownstein, vice president of the climate and energy program at the Environmental Defense Fund, told the Washington Examiner. Brownstein’s group supports fracking with certain conditions because it produces half as much carbon when burned for electricity as coal.

But Brownstein said the study failed to adequately evaluate various steps in the fracking process that could lead to water pollution.

“This is not simply an issue of whether ‘fracking’ does or does not cause water pollution. The act of fracking itself may be the smallest risk factor. Well integrity, how wastewater is handled after fracking process, etc. are much larger issues and we are by no means out of the woods on them,” he said in an email.

The EPA in its draft report acknowledged some of those elements pose risks to water supplies.

Congress asked the EPA to study whether fracking pollutes drinking water supplies in 2010. The intervening years have invited their share of controversy.

The EPA in December 2011 said in a draft report that fracking polluted groundwater in Pavillion, Wyo., as the agency said chemicals from fracking fluid were present in the water.

But those findings drew fire from the oil and gas industry, which said the elements EPA picked up were naturally occurring. The EPA in 2013 decided not to pursue a final report on the alleged fracking-caused contamination nor submit it for peer review, though the EPA said it “stands behind its work and data.”

• This article was published at 12:47 p.m. and has been updated.