EPA Finds Compound Used in Fracking in Wyoming Aquifer

The gas fracking company is supplying drinking water to residents.

That doesn't mean it won't get you in the shower or washing your hands. Clean water needs to be more than about being safe to drink.

 

And not just for us. What are the fish supposed to do? Or the bears that eat them? What happens when the trees die off? What are people in the affected area supposed to water their crops with?

Fracking is a prime example of the economic fallacy of ignoring externalities - a few people might generate a bit of cash in the short term, but the long term costs of destroying an aquifer are infinitely higher. Overall, it cannot be considered a 'profitable' activity.

 

EPA,,, Regulation,,, we don't need that stuff,,, Rick Perry (Sic)

 

I know the third thing we don't need in government......Rick Perry!



/political mode off

 

frightening.

 

All this talk about Fracking, and no one mentions Battlestar Galactica? What's up with that?

Tom

 

Presumably rural home owner well water is the main issue in these problem cases. We use a Brita (river water is our source) but I would not rely on it for something like this.

 

excuse me for not being nerdy enough :focus:

 

I use a Brita to filter out the bad taste of my tap water, which I assume is already safe. I would not trust it to remove volatile hydrocarbons. I don't even know if an under-the-sink R.O. unit works for that.

 

We don't even know that they are using VOCs, since the Haliburton exemption. Fact is, we don't know what the hell they are putting down the hole(s).

Thank you Dick Cheney!

Icarus

 

Oh believe me ... anyone with an ounce of brain matter knows EXACTLY what they're "puttin' down the hole" grab your ankles. ...and thank you Koch brothers.

 

Maybe? :noidea:

"Vaseline® Petroleum Jelly is a mixture of mineral oils, paraffin and
microcrystalline waxes that, when blended together, create something
remarkable - a smooth jelly that has a melting point just above body
temperature."

 

It may be off topic but goes to a lot of the political silliness regarding EPA today.

All of EPA's actions stem from the law. It's not Jackson hanging out at Ariel Rios deciding how to screw industry. They are obligated to follow the law that Congress has passed.

Under the law, if EPA finds that a state program does not meet the Act then EPA has no choice but to promulgate a FIP. Whether or not this has an effect on pollution is not relevant. That Texas wants to follow another regime is not relevant, as this is not the proper venue (that would be Congress). And from what I've seen that's not even what Texas' arguments were. They used a bunch of already-rejected arguments about NAAQS and "subject to regulation".

There are refineries in states other than Texas, and every other State has implemented GHG-PSD, so that seems to be a red herring. If Texas does want to regulate GHG from non-PSD sources they already have the power to do that (states can go beyond what the Act requires). But somehow I doubt that's what they want.. after all this is what they told EPA: "Texas has neither the authority nor the intention of interpreting, ignoring, or amending its laws in order to compel the permitting of greenhouse gas emissions".

I'll grant that Perry and other Texas government officials may be playing political games ("states rights", anti-Obama, job killing EPA, etc). But once the endangerment finding is issued, the EPA isn't making any political decisions, they are following the law.

 

Certainly the 1970s congress that passed the clean air act did not envision the EPA regulating CO2 as a pollutant. Congress failed to act twice in first in the failed cap and trade bill then in the failed bill to strip the epa of ability to regulate co2. If you were to look at this epa one of the first orders of business was to grant california to regulate co2 so that they could regulate cafe standards. This is hardly a non-political move. If they do look at congress's intent in the legislation that did pass the house it was to regulate co2 as a whole, and not point sources. The EPAs POV is clearly political here as was perry's and the TCEQ. Now the epa itself has asked for the ability to pick and choose these point sources and has argued that if it does not the regulation will have a huge cost.

Which is where my contention is, the EPA instead of looking at clean air and clean water would rather spend a great deal of time fighting texas on ghg. This is a distraction. There has been a great deal of politics in the epa under both democratic and republican adminstrations. Why is the epa supporting burning hazzardous waste in cement making and dumping of factory farm waste into lakes and rivers but concentrating on political favoritism in ghg regulation? The "haliburton rule" was enacted after the epa decided that this fracking and natural gas extraction was legitimate.

 

...historically EPA was born out of problems such as Love Canal, and tended to come down harshly on petro/chemicals plants. Other sectors such as utilities, municipal, farms, yes cement kilns, mining, may have had less attention. The public perception is laws are strict for all sectors, but as you say, it is not always logical or even. US auto industry used to feel that sector has been overly hard with regs too. Also we'd have to be naive not to think EPA has mix of political as well as a more impartial scientitic agenda.

 

AG I am not sure why you blame Congress; after all it was Supreme Court who decided CO2 is a pollutant. With respect to

re-read Politburo comments; they have no choice.

 

I'm not sure what you think the law says, but the EPA completely changed policy with regards to ghg between Bush and Obama. They definitely had a choice on how they enforced the clean air act.

The supreme court only interpreted the law. If the supreme court or the EPA got it wrong it was congresses responsibility to state what the law should be. That is why the congress is responsible for credit or blame. They are responsible for these laws.

 

you can look up supreme court decision which declared CO2 a pollutant and mandated EPA to regulate it. Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

There isn't any merits to your Bush vs Obama comment. The deadline for implementation was 2009, so why would you be so upset that they did what court told them to?

 

Ultimately all law belongs to Congress. If the Supreme Court changes a law by interpretation, then that law wasn't well written in the first place.

Tom

 

Right. It's more accurate to say that the new administration decided to stop the appeal against the court decision.