Louis Meeks, a burly 59-year-old alfalfa farmer, fills a metal trough with water from his well and watches an oily sheen form on the surface that gives off a faint odor of paint.
He points to small bubbles that appear in the water, and a thin ring of foam around the edge.
Meeks is convinced that energy companies drilling for natural gas in this central Wyoming farming community have poisoned his water and ruined his health.
A recent report by the Environmental Protection Agency suggests he just might have a case — and that the multi-billion US dollar industry may have a problem on its hands. EPA tests found his well contained what it termed 14 “contaminants of concern.”
It tested 39 wells in the Pavillion area this year, and said in August that 11 were contaminated. The agency did not identify the cause but said gas drilling was a possibility.
What’s happened to the water supply in Pavillion could have repercussions for the nation’s energy policies. As a clean-burning fuel with giant reserves in the US, natural gas is central to plans for reducing US dependence on foreign oil.
But aggressive development is drawing new scrutiny from residents who live near gas fields, even in energy-intensive states such as Wyoming, where one in five jobs are linked to oil and gas which contributed US$15 billion the state economy in 2007.
People living near gas drilling facilities in states including Pennsylvania, Colorado, New Mexico and Wyoming have complained that their water has turned cloudy, foul-smelling, or even black as a result of chemicals used in a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
The industry contends drilling chemicals are heavily diluted and injected safely into gas reservoirs thousands of meters beneath aquifers, so they will never seep into drinking water supplies.
“There has never been a documented case of fracking that’s contaminated wells or groundwater,” said Randy Teeuwen, a spokesman for EnCana Corp, Canada’s second-largest energy company, which operates 248 wells in the Pavillion and nearby Muddy Ridge fields.
“We know they don’t have the science to prove what they say,” Teeuwen said of those who criticize fracking.
HARD TO PROVE SOURCE OF CONTAMINATION
Critics say their kids have got sick, their animals have died, and their water has in some cases become flammable because of methane escaped into aquifers from gas wells.
But they have been unable to prove their case because drilling companies are not required to disclose exactly what chemicals they use, thanks to an exemption to a federal clean water law granted to the oil and gas industry in 2005.
The EPA, in its first tests in response to concerns over gas drilling and water quality, has not positively identified the source of the Pavillion contamination but it did name gas drilling as a possible cause. The agency is continuing its tests and expects to issue a report in spring 2010.
Luke Chavez, an EPA scientist leading the investigation, said he will now seek to determine the quantities of a range of contaminants and their health effects.
“We’re taking a shotgun approach,” he said.
In Pavillion, residents are on edge. Meeks’ neighbor Donnet Baughman said she does not mind companies drilling for gas in her backyard, as long as it doesn’t poison her water.
“We are not against the oil and gas industry at all,” she said during an interview in her living room. “We just want them to do it right.”
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