WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is requiring companies that drill for oil and natural gas on federal lands to disclose chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing operations.
A final rule released Friday also updates requirements for well construction and disposal of water and other fluids used in fracking, a drilling method that has prompted an ongoing boom in natural gas production.
The rule has been under consideration for more than three years, drawing criticism from the oil and gas industry and environmental groups. The industry fears the regulation could hinder the drilling boom. The groups worry that it will allow unsafe drilling techniques to pollute groundwater.
The rule relies on an online database used by at least 16 states to track the chemicals used in fracking operations.
The rule takes effect in June.
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Finally we here in Fracksylvania will find out how we’re being poisoned.
My water supplier just sent everyone yet another warning that the tested levels of carcinogenic trihalomethanes in the water exceed EPA limits, but we shouldn’t worry. This makes many such consecutive notices over the past years.
TTHMs are he byproduct of chlorinating bromides that are suspected to be used in fracking fluid. Of course, the mother frackers are blaming it on other sources, never mind that we’ve never had this situation until now. They even went so far as to blame it on mine runoff, but the only problem with that theory is that they’re filling up abandoned coal mines with their waste water.
In other words, prove it or die a slow death trying, and once you prove it, you’ll have to convince a gaggle of corporate toe-sucking Republicans to actually do something about it. By then, they’ll have tapped the place out, poisoned us all, and high-tailed their asses back to Texas and Louisiana.
It’s about fracking time.
Good beginning. Long overdue. GWBush and Cheney should be held liable for the devastation to some folks’ only source of clean, potable water. It was a despicable act for the Bush Administration to allow oil and gas companies to be able to skirt all environmental laws when “fracking.”
Even aside from the issue of fracking chemicals being introduced into subterranean strata, I wonder if the fracking process might disrupt the local geology enough that chemicals from deeper petroleum or natural gas deposits might end up seeping or otherwise being introduced into ground water aquifers closer to the surface. As bad as fracking chemicals may or may not be, petroleum is a highly toxic mix of chemicals, some of which are carcinogenic.
No doubt Mitch McConnell will tell the states to ignore this regulation also.