U.S. Gas Industry Not Using Cleaner Drilling Practices, Report Says

The U.S. energy industry rarely uses numerous technologies designed to reduce the environmental risks — particularly contamination of water supplies — associated with drilling for natural gas in Wyoming, Texas, New York, Pennsylvania, and two dozen other states. ProPublica, a non-profit investigative journalism Web site, said energy companies have figured out how to drill wells with fewer toxic chemicals, enclose wastewater so it can’t contamnate streams and groundwater, and sharply curb emissions from leaky gas valves. But because of loose regulatory oversight, these technologies are seldom used in the 32 states where natural gas is drilled, ProPublica said. Some companies have switched to cleaner practices, such as phasing out the use of diesel fuel during hydraulic fracturing, in which chemicals and fluids are pumped underground at high pressure to break apart rock and release natural gas. But the industry is exempted from many federal environmental regulations, and states rarely mandate the use of cleaner technologies. And industry leaders typically only use these safeguards “when political, regulatory, cost or social pressures” force them to do so, according to ProPublica. The use of hydraulic fracturing has polluted underground water supplies in numerous states, and officials in New York and Pennsylvania are reviewing the technology’s impact on grounswater as gas companies increasingly drill in a gas-rich geologic zone known as the Marcellus Shale.