Tag: Pavillion

U.S. Reps. Diana DeGette and Jared Polis are calling on President Obama to strengthen environmental and public health standards to protect against risks posed by hydraulic fracturing.

There was widespread praise Tuesday for a hard-fought compromise deal that led to Colorado’s groundbreaking new hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure rule, but environmental groups and some politicians have already started pushing for more regulation of the state’s booming oil and gas industry.

Colorado’s conservation community wants to make sure oil and gas regulators get it right the first time Monday when they decide on a new hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure rule. Otherwise, they say state officials should keep working on the new rule.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today released draft findings in its ongoing investigation of contaminated well water near natural gas drilling in Pavillion, Wyo. The draft report “indicates detection of synthetic chemicals … consistent with gas production and hydraulic fracturing fluids.”

U.S. Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., dubbing himself “the leading advocate for hydraulic fracturing in the United States Senate,” sent a letter this week to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) administrator Lisa Jackson accusing her of “contradictory” statements about the common but controversial oil and gas drilling practice.

The Canadian oil and gas company EnCana, which at one time held the record for the highest state fine for a gas-drilling spill case in Colorado, has been stymied in its attempt to sell a Wyoming gas field where hydraulic fracturing has allegedly contaminated groundwater.

Western Slope gas-drilling activist Lisa Bracken, citing parallels between her infamous case and an EPA probe of groundwater contamination in Pavillion, Wyo., says both incidents should be considered at a hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure hearing in Denver next month.

Louis Meeks says he witnessed shoddy hydraulic fracturing practices on his ranch near Pavillion, Wyo., by an oil and gas company fined for the same thing in Colorado, and wants the federal government to regulate the process because states seem incapable of proper oversight.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS -- Oil and gas industry watchdog groups in Garfield County want the state to dramatically step up groundwater testing near gas drilling operations in the wake of new evidence that hydraulic fracturing may have contaminated drinking-water wells in Wyoming.