Pollution linked to ‘fracking’

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday for the first time that “fracking” — a controversial method of improving the productivity of oil and gas wells — might be to blame for causing groundwater pollution.

The draft finding could have significant implications while states, including Ohio, try to determine how to best regulate the process.

“All of the rhetoric from the industry has been there’s no way that this can happen,” said Trent Dougherty, a lawyer for the advocacy group Ohio Environmental Council.

“This shows that it has happened, and we need to protect the people in Ohio.”

The EPA found that hydrocarbons likely associated with fracking chemicals had been detected in the groundwater beneath Pavillion, a small community in central Wyoming where residents say their well water reeks of chemicals. Health officials last year advised them not to drink the water.

The announcement will add to the controversy over fracking, which has played a large role in opening up many gas reserves, including the Marcellus shale in the eastern United States and the Utica shale in Ohio in recent years.

The industry has long contended that fracking is safe, but environmentalists and some residents disagree.

In Ohio, where oil and gas companies are buying up mineral rights beneath millions of acres of land across the state, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources is in charge of overseeing the new field.