What's On Tap? The Halliburton Loophole

It’s time to test the water, for Norma’s sake.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced yesterday that it hopes to begin a study this year on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on drinking water supplies.

This research can’t begin soon enough in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania, New York, Maryland and West Virginia, which has experienced a multiplication of natural gas drilling wells using hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” is technique in which drilling companies pump millions of gallons of water laced with chemicals into the ground to fracture rock and release natural gas into pipes.

I took a trip this fall up to Dimock, Pennsylvania, to interview several residents whose wells had been contaminated with methane by drilling rigs that now surround their rural town. One woman, Norma Fiorentino (pictured above), a retired nurse and widow, reported that the water well in her front yard blew up last year because of leaking methane. She said her tap water ran black and smelled of diesel fuel, and she’s been drinking bottled water since.

Norma and other neighbors signed agreements with a drilling company to let them “frack” under their neighborhood. But she said the amount she receives – about $165 per month – is low compared to the damage to the environment around their once-quiet community, including contamination of their water and the clear-cutting of five acres of woods for a drilling pad and equipment.
 
The drilling company "made us think we were all going to get rich from this,” Norma said.  “But they didn't say anything about our land being ruined or my water being ruined."

Which chemicals, exactly, are being used by the drilling industry and are possibly seeping into ground water is a matter of contention.  Congress exempted hydraulic fracturing from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act (the so-called “Halliburton loophole,” which received this nickname because Halliburton is a major player in the fracking industry in Pennsylvania and across the country).

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation supports legislation that would close this loophole and provide more protection to people who live near wells. The Senate version of the bill that would end the Halliburton loohope is sponsored by Pennsylvania Senator Robert Casey, and cosponsored by Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, as well as Senators Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand of New York. On the House side, the "Frack Act" is backed by several representatives in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, including
Michael Arcuri, Maurice Hinchey, Eric Massa and Paul Tonko, all of New York, and John Sarbanes of Maryland.

However, the legislation likely won't move forward until the EPA study is complete, according to a story in E & E, a news service that focuses on energy and the environment. The study's timing was discussed yesterday by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson.

"The [timing] of the study will depend on us being able to adjust our operating budget for the current fiscal year," Jackson told the House Interior and Environment Appropriations Subcommittee, according to E & E. "What we've done is to try to fund the whole thing out of our budget this year and next year, but we would hope to start this year."

Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who is authored language in legislation calling for the study, urged Jackson to accelerate the study's launch. "I hope you're successful, and I hope it moves forward soon," he said. "The idea of drilling for natural gas is very important, but it's got to be done in a way that's safe and sound and secure."

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(Photo by Tom Pelton)

 

Comments

[Jim Archey]

Good Ole Halliburton, Cheneys money bags He of course took a leave of abscence his big time position with them. Not to say he helped them get all the big contracts in Iraq, not to say he helped them get all the big contracts in the Katrina devastated areas and of course he had nothing to do with all the foreign workers there rather than the locals. Did he ever come clean on how much money he was receiving from them after he "gave them up" because of conflict of interest. Not to say he didn't get his "interest" befor, during and after hewas discovered to be a big sot board member. With that kind of backing Halliburton can and has thumbed their noses at the little guys concerns regardless of of how valid the concerns are. Just an opinion based an numerous complaints, and exposures that are of course silly rumors.

[sildenafil citrate]

I mean what is the objective of this post, merely informative or something more ?