Fracking for Natural Gas and Oil May Have Broken the Law
Companies Injected Diesel in 15 States, But Locations are Unknown
WASHINGTON – August 5, 2010. More than 25 conservation and community organizations from across the United States asked the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and a congressional committee to investigate whether natural gas and oil companies broke the law by injecting diesel fuel underground in a controversial process known as hydraulic fracturing.
The groups sent letters today to the EPA and the U.S. House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee. The letters asked them to determine whether companies violated the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in their fracturing operations.
In February, the House Energy and Commerce Committee disclosed as part of an investigation into hydraulic fracturing that energy companies Halliburton and B.J. Services had used diesel in hydraulic fracturing operations in at least 15 states in 2005, 2006 and 2007. However the companies did not reveal to the committee precisely where these injections occurred.
One of the letters released today also asks the Committee to investigate exactly where and when the companies injected diesel so that communities can protect themselves. The more than 25 organizations simultaneously sent letters to the three fracturing companies named in the committee’s February disclosure, Halliburton, B.J. Services and Schlumberger, asking the companies to state where and when they injected diesel and related compounds. MORE
Gee, wonder if one of those 15 states was Texas.
Here is the EWG press release.
About Sharon Wilson
Sharon Wilson is considered a leading citizen expert on the impacts of shale oil and gas extraction. She is the go-to person whether it’s top EPA officials from D.C., national and international news networks, or residents facing the shock of eminent domain and the devastating environmental effects of natural gas development in their backyards.
- Web |
- More Posts(5121)
So, can there be fracking without diesel fuel?? They really don't want us to know any of this, right? I mean how many of us living in suburbia really want to know that within a few hundred feet, if not right below our residential neighborhoods, there are explosions taking place?
The "clean" energy trumpeted far and wide is more accurately the "dangerous" energy. And they told us it was all being done to help America. They've gotten away with all of this for how long? And how much longer???
How much longer depends on you and all the rest of us. We have to make some lifestyle changes and push the change we want.
Also, if we don't get Obama reelected, we will lose this EPA and then we will have a "Drill, Baby, Drill" president and an EPA like the TCEQ. There will be no hope then.
The stakes for all of this are very high. Absolutely, Obama must be re-elected. And some of the very people in my community who are so opposed to gas drilling believe that he must not be re-elected. Understanding the politics of all of this is so important. Understanding that even though this may not be a purely Democratic or Republican issue…electing a Republican president and/or Republican representatives (in the upcoming mid-terms) only ensures that the drilling will continue with an unregulated vengeance.
The political ignorance is amazing. I heard that people in Grand Prairie are blaming the drilling on Obama's stimulus. WTF? How stupid can you be. I resent their ignorance.
I resent the ignorance, too. And I don't understand it. But the confusion about all of it seems to work well for the industry. Too well.
What makes me sad is I have all these groups begging me to help them, and I want to help, but I know that some of them will continue with the same voting patterns that got them into this mess.