Hydraulic Fracturing of Oil and Gas Wells

• Threats to drinking water
• Regulation of hydraulic fracturing
• Hydraulic fracturing 101

Hydraulic fracturing is a common technique used to stimulate the production of oil and natural gas. Typically, fluids are injected underground at high pressures, the formations fracture, and the oil or gas flows more freely out of the formation. Some of the injected fluids remain trapped underground. A number of these fluids, such as diesel fuel, qualify as hazardous materials and carcinogens, and are toxic enough to contaminate groundwater resources.  Read more details in OGAP's basic primer on hydraulic fracturing.

Fracking Fact Sheet

Threats to Water Quality

There are a number of cases in the U.S. where hydraulic fracturing is the prime suspect in incidences of impaired or polluted drinking water. In Alabama, Colorado, New Mexico, Virginia, West Virginia and Wyoming, incidents have been recorded in which residents have reported changes in water quality or quantity following fracturing operations of gas wells near their homes.  Read the Amos and Hocutt landowner stories for two accounts of water contamination that occurred following hydraulic fracturing events.

According to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, 90 percent of oil and gas wells in the U.S. undergo fracturing to stimulate production.  Natural gas development is booming in the U.S., particularly coalbed methane (CBM) development; hundreds of companies are looking to drill for CBM wherever there are viable deposits of coal. In at least ten states (Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Montana, New Mexico, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming), these coal formations contain drinking water aquifers.

Inadequate Regulation of Hydraulic Fracturing

Despite the widespread use of the practice, and the risks hydraulic fracturing poses to human health and safe drinking water supplies, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") does not regulate the injection of fracturing fluids under the Safe Drinking Water Act. The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials -- unchecked -- directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies. 

Several oil and gas producing states have regulations governing some aspects of hydraulic fracturing, but they rarely, if ever, require companies to provide detailed information on types and quantities of chemicals being used, and whether the amount injected underground returns to the surface or remains underground.  Additionally, in most states companies do not have to prove that fractures have stayed within the target formations.  Nor do companies have to monitor water quality when there are drinking water formations in close proximity to areas where hydraulic fracturing occurs. 

The History of Federal Regulation
In 1997, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit (Atlanta) ordered the EPA to regulate hydraulic fracturing under the Safe Drinking Water Act. This decision followed a 1989 CBM fracturing operation in Alabama that landowners say contaminated a residential water well.

In 2000, in response to the 1997 court decision, the EPA initiated a study of the threats to water supplies associated with the fracturing of coal seams for methane production. The primary goal of the study was to assess the potential for fracturing to contaminate underground drinking water supplies.

Meanwhile, in 2001, a special task force on energy policy convened by Vice President Dick Cheney recommended that Congress exempt hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The EPA completed its study in 2004, finding that fracturing "poses little or no threat" to drinking water. The EPA also concluded that no further study of hydraulic fracturing was necessary.  The 2004 EPA study has been called "scientifically unsound" by EPA whistleblower Weston Wilson.  In an October 2004 letter to Colorado's congressional delegation, Wilson recommended that EPA continue investigating hydraulic fracturing and form a new peer review panel that would be less heavily weighted with members of the regulated industry.  In March of 2005, EPA Inspector General Nikki Tinsley found enough evidence of potential mishandling of the EPA hydraulic fracturing study to justify a review of Wilson's complaints.

Our Drinking Water at Risk Cover

The Oil and Gas Accountability Project (OGAP) has conducted a review of the EPA study.  As reported in Our Drinking Water at Risk, we found that EPA removed information from earlier drafts that suggested unregulated fracturing poses a threat to human health, and that the Agency did not include information that suggests fracturing fluids may pose a threat to drinking water long after drilling operations are completed.

OGAP's review of relevant data on hydraulic fracturing suggests that there is insufficient information for EPA to have concluded that hydraulic fracturing does not pose a threat to drinking water.

In 2005, a national energy bill included the exemption of hydraulic fracturing from the Safe Drinking Water Act.  This bill passed, with the exemption, although it left the door open for the EPA to regulate the use of diesel in hydraulic fracturing operations.

For More Information

Related News Stories

• "Exemption Likely to Drilling Rules: Fracturing, used by energy firms to extract oil and gas, is set to get a House panel's OK despite concerns that it imperils drinking water," Los Angeles Times, 04/14/2005. 
  
• "EDITORIAL: Flip the switch on fossilized thinking," Philadelphia Inquirer, 04/20/2005. 
  
• "Enviros urge regulation of hydraulic fracturing," Greenwire, 04/15/2005 (subscription required). 
  
• "Group says feds should be tracking 'fracking'," Glenwood Springs Post Independent, 04/15/2005. 
  
• "Fracking regulation may undo energy bill," Washington Times, 04/14/2005 
  
• "Group: Extraction process threatens water," Denver Post, 04/14/2005.
  
• "Groups seeks more "fracing" controls," Casper Star-Tribune, 04/14/2005. 
  
• "Fracturing regs reach breaking point", Telluride Planet, 04/14/2005 
  
• "Fracturing exemption opposed by local interests," Grand Junction Sentinel, 04/14/2005 
  
• "Group disputes gas drilling method," Durango Herald, 04/14/2005 

Other information

• Our Drinking Water at Risk. OGAP's review of the EPA's final study on Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs. (April, 2005)
• Expert Testimony on Hydraulic Fracturing Impacts by John D. Bredehoeft (May 2003)
• OGAP Comments on EPA draft study Evaluation of Impacts to Underground Sources of Drinking Water by Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Reservoirs. (October 2002)
• Hydraulic Fracturing of Coalbed Methane Wells:  A Threat to Drinking Water (January 2002, Prepared by Natural Resources Defense Council)
• Fracking: a brief overview of the issues.  OGAP Fact Sheet