Pavilion, Wyoming located about 230 miles northeast of Salt Lake city is a small community surrounded by a natural gas well field, (up to 150 wells), owned and operated by Alberta based Encana Corporation. Encana uses hydraulic fracturing or “Fracking”, a controversial technology employed to recover and enhance natural gas and oil production from deep shale deposits in the ground.
Responding to years of ongoing complaints from Pavilion residents about the water quality of their private drinking water wells, the EPA started working with state, local authorities and Encana three years ago. The EPA drilled two deep water monitoring test wells and began to test and assess the quality of the residents drinking water and to identify potential sources of contamination.
On December 8th after two years of testing, the EPA released a preliminary draft report indicating that ground water in the Pavilion aquifer contains methane, benzene, other petroleum hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds, likely associated with these type(s) of gas production practices.
The EPA said its announcement is the first step in a process of opening up its findings for review by the public and other scientists. “EPA’s highest priority remains ensuring that Pavilion residents have access to safe drinking water,” said Jim Martin, EPA regional administrator in Denver.
Salient News.com
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