EPA and Fracking in Wyoming

          The article entitled EPA: Natural Gas Fracking Linked to Water Contamination that was featured on the Scientific American website is quite a shocking article to read. This particular article talks about hoe hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, has recently been linked to water pollution underground in Pavillion, Wyoming. The Environmental Protection Agency crafted a rather large report on the water contamination in the Wyoming town.

            The people of Pavillion began having distasteful water in the 1990s and the situation on got worse after the gas wells began to be fracked in nearby fields. Once this water began getting repulsive, the gas companies began giving water for drinking to the residents.

            The report that the article mentioned found some of the compounds that are commonly used for this particular gas drilling process. Even after these compounds were found in the water, the EPA looked for other possible explanations for the contamination but none were proven as well as the fracking hypothesis. The EPA even found that the cement around the gas wells for protection actually separated from the well, which could have caused even more contamination. These findings are quite shocking for many reasons.

            One of the main reasons is that the water contamination caused by fracking strongly challenge the original argument from the gas drilling industry claiming that the process is safe. It is also shocking due to the fact that it has struck a political debate in Congress on new regulations and standards for fracking by oil industries. 

            The industry that has been fracking the area in Wyoming claims that it is impossible to prove that fracking could have caused the water contamination due to the inconclusive data. The EPA report has yet to undergo the peer and public review process in order to go through the publishing process, however.

            Overall, the findings are shocking enough to want to dig deeper and discover more on the water contamination issue in Wyoming. If, in the end, fracking is found to cause the contamination in the wells in the town, some major laws will have to be implemented to make sure more water is not contaminated in the future in other towns across America.