In an about-face, officials from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) returned to Dimock, PA for another look at water wells contaminated three years ago by Cabot Oil and Gas activities. They are reopening their review of town water supplies after recent tests revealed issues that they say “merit further investigation”.
This is a 180-degree turn for EPA. At the beginning of the month they sent a letter to residents stating that the information they had gathered “does not indicate that the well water presents an immediate health threat to users.”
But now, they say, critical data gaps have emerged in water sampling and test results. They are also concerned that residents have alternative sources of fresh water.
Tests from the drinking water wells taken in early fall showed elevated levels of metals, bis(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, glycols, surfactants, and 2-methoxyethanol. So now EPA wants to investigate further – an action that the industry group Energy in Depth has criticized as “overstepping [the EPA’s] regulatory authority.”
You can read more about this in prize-winning journalist Laura Legere's article here.
good news-- this water study ordered by Cabot is 1500 pages long and rather comprehensive
ReplyDeleteand actually shows industrial compounds in the Dimock water that can only come from gas drilling-- Guess, Cabot was hoping to show a clean slate and it backfired and kept this secret as long as they could until they got what they wanted from the DEP. Now we'll see what the EPA will do with this-- or will they fold under pressure from the gasholes.
Data has been hid for years show the deleterious affects of gas drilling, and now some is breaking through--