Shale Gas in the Spotlight: EPA Releases Its Final Report on Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States

Abstract

After years of study, on December 13, 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally released its final report on Impacts from the Hydraulic Fracturing Water Cycle on Drinking Water Resources in the United States. Despite much attention on the changes to some of the specific language used, this long-awaited final report largely conforms with the preliminary findings set out in the EPA’s draft assessment, dated June 2015, that hydraulic fracturing activities have some potential to impact drinking water resources, but that impacts to date have been relatively isolated rather than pervasive.

Changes have been made in the final report, in comparison with the draft assessment, including providing further clarification relating to the major findings, adding other chemicals to the chemicals listed in the draft assessment, and better identifying gaps in data and uncertainties in scientific knowledge. Notably, EPA also reconsidered the language of its conclusion in the draft assessment that the agency “did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.” EPA excluded this sentence in its final report explaining that “contrary to what the sentence implied, uncertainties prevent EPA from estimating the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle.”