Waxman broadens onshore gas drilling probe, says companies don’t track key info

The technique has helped
enable a boom in development of gas from shale rock formations in a number of
states. The viability of shale gas has helped boost
U.S. proven gas reserves to their highest level in more than 30 years,
according to the federal Energy Information Administration.

But the boom is also creating
fears — which the industry calls overblown — about contamination of water
supplies.

Waxman and Markey months ago sent letters to
drilling services companies asking about their practices, and on
Monday the lawmakers said the responses revealed information gaps.

“The Committee asked that
each recipient of our February 18 and May 6 letters provide data on whether it
has performed hydraulic fracturing in or near underground sources of drinking
water as defined by the Safe Drinking Water Act. The hydraulic fracturing service
companies informed us that they do not track whether the wells they fracture
are located in underground sources of drinking water. They said that the
operators of the oil and gas wells would be more likely to maintain the
requested information,” Waxman and Markey said in a memo to other
committee members.

The memo adds that they had
also asked the service companies about recovery and disposal of water and other
fluids that flow back to the surface of the wells.

“The recipients informed us
that the well operators, not the service companies, are responsible for any
flowback or water produced from the wells and therefore do not maintain
information on the volumes or chemical contents of this waste,” the memo
states.

The probe comes as several
Democrats are floating measures that would tighten regulation of fracking.
Bills introduced in both chambers would require EPA regulation of the practice
under the Safe Drinking Water Act and disclosure of chemicals used.

But the industry says state
regulations provide adequate oversight, and that a suite of new federal
requirements would make many operations uneconomical. 

EPA has launched a major
study of the water quality and health effects of the practice.

Update: Energy in
Depth, an industry-backed group fighting new regulation of fracking, had this
to say about the new Waxman letters:

“The basic geological reality of shale gas exploration is the
formations we fracture are separated from the formations carrying potable
underground water by thousands and thousands of feet — and millions and
millions of tons — of solid, impermeable rock. If the chairman is looking for
some additional information on that scientific phenomenon, or on the steps that
operators take at every wellsite in America to ensure what happens inside the
wellbore has no way of communicating with what occurs outside it, that’s a
conversation we look forward to being part of,” spokesman Chris Tucker said.