Abstract:

As the hunt for important unconventional gas resources in America expands, an increasingly popular method of wringing resources from stubborn underground formations is a process called hydraulic fracturing – also described as hydrofracturing, fracking, or fracing – wherein fluids are pumped at high pressure underground to fracture a formation and release trapped oil or gas.

Operators have fraced wells for more than fifty years, but the practice has recently grown rapidly in areas like the Barnett Shale of North Central Texas and the Marcellus Shale beneath Pennsylvania, New York, and other Appalachian states.

This Article describes the process of hydraulic fracturing, existing studies of the environmental effects of hydraulic fracturing, and the laws and regulations that apply to the practice. It argues that there is no direct federal regulation of the fracing process (the pumping of fluids into a wellbore), that court guidance in this area is limited, and that state regulations differ substantially.

Although other general regulations apply to the practice, the Article argues that in light of the dearth of regulation specific to fracturing in some areas, more study of the potential environmental and human health effects of fracing is needed in order to determine whether current regulation is sufficient. The EPA completed a partial study in 2004, but this Article focuses on the deficiencies of that study and calls for a new, national, scientific study of the practice.

Conclusion:

...no one knows the full range of effects because they have not been adequately researched. The EPA’s report is the most comprehensive to date, but was part of a highly-charged political process and was never completed, because the EPA concluded, perhaps prematurely, that further study was unnecessary.

Furthermore, the report investigated fracing in only one type of formation – coalbeds – and assessed the impacts of one stage of fracing, failing to seriously consider concerns such as groundwater depletion and surface disposal of fracing waste.

The highest regulatory priority for fracing should be the instigation of a federal, scientifically rigorous report prepared by the National Academy of Sciences or a similar “neutral” body and a simultaneous regulatory risk-limiting mechanism.

Next, based on the data contained within this report, and given the risks of certain types of fracing, Congress should consider reversing its 2005 exemption of fracing from the Safe Drinking Water Act; it should not wait to commence this process pending the completion of the report, although the report will be essential for future statutory and regulatory decisions.

...In the rush to extract essential resources, a process which itself contributes to human wellbeing, other aspects of human wellbeing – the quality of the environment and public health – must not be cast aside as a mere impediment to progress.

See: Oil & Gas Accountability Project (OGAP)

See also: Pew Campaign for Responsible Mining

More than three decades after the Clean Water Act, iconic American waterways like the Chesapeake Bay and Puget Sound are in perilous condition and facing new sources of contamination.

With polluted runoff still flowing in from industry, agriculture and massive suburban development, scientists note that many new pollutants and toxins from modern everyday life are already being found in the drinking water of millions of people across the country and pose a threat to fish, wildlife and, potentially, human health.

In Poisoned Waters, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Hedrick Smith examines the growing hazards to human health and the ecosystem...

...In addition to assessing the scope of America's polluted-water problem, Poisoned Waters highlights several cases in which grassroots citizens' groups succeeded in effecting environmental change: In South Park, Wash., incensed residents pushed for better cleanup of PCB contamination that remained from an old asphalt plant. In Loudon County, Va., residents prevented a large-scale housing development that would have overwhelmed already-strained stormwater systems believed to contribute to the contamination in Chesapeake Bay.

See Credits.

A federal judge has overturned water quality rules that were meant to protect southeastern Montana cropland from natural gas drilling but were assailed by Wyoming as a threat to energy production.

The rules covered the Tongue and Powder rivers, which flow north from the rich gas fields of northeastern Wyoming into primarily agricultural land in Montana.

Drafted by Montana and approved by the Environmental Protection Agency, the rules limited how much salty water - a byproduct of drilling - could enter the rivers. State officials said the EPA had not yet begun to enforce the rules, in part because of a pending lawsuit.

In a judgment in that case issued Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Clarence Brimmer in Cheyenne, Wyo., annulled the rules and sent them back to the EPA to reconsider. Brimmer wrote that the EPA had failed to give the water quality standards a full review when it approved them in 2003 and 2008.

The lawsuit has pitted natural gas companies backed by the state of Wyoming against the EPA and Montana.

The case represents one of several running skirmishes between Montana and Wyoming over the rivers that flow north across their shared border.

"Rep. Diane DeGette’s (D-CO) attempt to regulate fracking — underground hydraulic fracturing for natural gas extraction — is under attack by a multimillion-dollar lobbying and public-relations campaign from the oil and gas industry. Led by the American Petroleum Institute and the Independent Petroleum Association of America, dozens of industry organizations established the Energy in Depth front group to denounce fracking legislation as an “unnecessary financial burden on a single small-business industry, American oil and natural gas producers.”

See: Lee Fuller. "HF 101: As Cornell Begins Study of Shale Gas Exploration, Energy In Depth Offers Itself Up as Resource for Ad Hoc Panel". Energy in Depth.