House Cmte Votes To Eliminate Clean Water Rules For Drilling Technique

[hatrack]

WASHINGTON — "Despite rising complaints that a common oil and gas industry drilling technique threatens drinking water supplies, the House Energy Committee appeared poised today to approve legislation exempting the practice from future regulation under federal drinking water statutes.

The technique, developed by Halliburton Co., involves injecting pressurized fluids deep underground to encourage oil and gas to rise to the surface. For years, Halliburton and other energy firms have been fighting efforts to regulate the practice under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The widely used practice, known as hydraulic fracturing, is generally considered safe. But there has been growing concern as its use has proliferated in coal bed methane fields around the country and in some of the geologically fragile oil and gas repositories of the American West.

On Tuesday, the House Energy Committee rejected Democrats' proposals to modify the exemption. The first, by Rep. Diana DeGette of Colorado, would have required a scientific study of the practice before the exemption went into effect. The second, by Rep. Hilda L. Solis of California, would have prohibited the use of diesel fuel in underground injection. Both amendments were defeated on party line votes in the committee. Republicans, including Reps. Heather Wilson of New Mexico and John Sullivan of Oklahoma, rejected the proposals, saying that fracturing is safe and there is no evidence of problems.

Despite such long-standing claims, environmental activists and several landowners presented evidence of problems around the country in a conference call today. That call featured an EPA whistleblower and residents who claim their drinking water supplies and their health have been damaged by the practice. The whistleblower, Weston Wilson, a 32-year veteran of the environmental agency, says that a recent EPA review of the technique's safety did not use well-established agency standards and relied on a peer review panel that was entirely dominated by energy industry veterans, including some still affiliated with Halliburton. His claims are under review by the EPA's inspector general. Fracturing generates $1.5 billion a year for the Houston-based energy firm, about one-fifth of its energy-related revenue."

EDIT

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-041305halliburton_lat,0,6809249.story?coll=la-home-headlines

[kainah]

1. these techniques are making strange bedfellows

Wyoming is ground zero for coalbed methane (injection mining) and hydraulic fracturing. The minerals industry is running wild here, with enormous impact, the strangest of which has been to form the beginnings of a fragile coalition between ranchers and environmentalists. Ranchers are bearing the brunt of the problems coming from this -- polluted water, surface damage from "thumper trucks," wells running dry and the total unknowns of what fracturing the earth repeatedly, over a large area, might ultimately reap.

The one thing I do know is that the environmental activists in Wyoming are becoming smarter and more active. And they are starting to count some influential ranchers among their number. If that coalition ever got firmed up, it would be a powerful thing.