All the drilling, water withdrawals and water pollution associated with the rapid recent development of Marcellus shale gas in Pennsylvania and four other Appalachian states has attracted the attention of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The EPA announced today that it will conduct a comprehensive $1.9 million study to investigate “the potential adverse impact that hydraulic fracturing may have on water quality and public health.”
The fracturing, or “fracking,” is a process that injects millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand into a gas well under great pressure to create horizontal and vertical cracks in the thick black shale lying 5,000 to 8,000 feet beneath three-quarters of Pennsylvania and parts of New York, Ohio, Maryland and West Virginia.
The fracking process releases the natural gas from the shale, but the EPA said there are concerns the process may degrade surface and ground water and pose a threat to human health and the environment.
The EPA is in the early stages of designing a hydraulic fracturing research program. Dr. Paul Anastas, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development, said the research will be conducted in a “transparent, peer-reviewed process, with significant stakeholder input.”
The Marcellus shale could hold as much as 363 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, enough to supply the nation’s gas needs for up to 15 years. The gas bonanza has resulted in a boom in well permitting and construction. Statewide, approximately 2,500 Marcellus shale gas well drilling permits were issued from 2007 through 2009 by the state Department of Environmental Protection, which projects another 5,000 permits will be issued this year.
Go to the Sierra Club page to support Reps. Vitali and Levdansky call to suspend permitting in state forests until impact is determined.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 
I had interesting encounter with my State Representative within fifteen minutes of completing my visit at the Sierra Club page advocated above. Many interactions but this for now:
The recently completed job fair at my campus was the second annual fair sponsored by that Representative. One assurance by that Representative was that only one company involved in this very recent job fair was connected to drilling, gas recovery or exploration. That company was only indirectly linked.
Radioactive Marcellus Shale Frac Water
This result is very likely unanticipated, although it is consistent with things like detecting radon in basements around the state a generation ago. Back in the mid 1980’s there was a good deal of news media coverage of this. I’ll bet even the drilling companies knew or thought about radioactivity in hydro-fracturing water only in their research modes.
What else might emerge with a little research? We should at least know what we are getting into when drilling into the shale before we do it concertedly. Ultimately that wisdom can only make the resource and its knowledge-based prudent use more valuable.
Such discovery is why states need depletion taxes to protect against exploitation before potentially significant side effects have been uncovered and considered.
New York Times editorial supporting comprehensive EPA effort to ensure safe hydraulic fracturing.
Finding Natural Gas, Safely published March 28, 2010