Encana Oil and Gas has asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to suspend the public comment period on its draft analysis indicating that compounds found in ground water near Pavillion, Wyo. are likely associated with hydraulic fracturing.
"The EPA is moving too quickly with its pre-dissemination public comment and peer review process on the Pavillion Report," wrote John Schopp, vice president of Encana's North Rockies Business Unit, in a Jan. 6 letter to Paul Anastas, assistant administrator of the agency's Office of Research and Development.
A draft the agency released Dec. 8 of its multi-year study had been anticipated as an important test of the gas industry's assertions that there has never been an incident in which groundwater was contaminated by hydraulic fracturing.
Encana, the major producer in the Pavillion field, and other producers countered with criticisms.
The study ignored historical water quality problems in the area, they said. It did not find the contaminants in actual drinking water wells, but only in test wells drilled by the agency itself.
The agency's Dec. 14 Federal Register notice establishing a 90-day public comment period was unclear on the topics and questions the public is to comment on, Schopp wrote in his letter.
The EPA also should make public the charge that it will make to an external panel that is to review the report, he wrote.
Finally, the agency has not made available all of the data it used to draw its preliminary conclusions, according to Schopp.
"Certain of this information is absolutely essential to any meaningful evaluation of the report," he wrote.
The company does not believe the data currently available establish a connection between hydraulic fracturing and drinking water problems in the Pavillion gas field, Schopp said, noting concerns about the agency's well construction methods, sampling techniques and data analysis.
"Presumably you also understand the importance to Encana and the natural gas industry in ensuring any final conclusions related to Pavillion Field as absolutely correct," he wrote. "In this circumstance, it is critical that all the relevant information be put to a public viewing to support an open and balanced dialogue on the data, the report and its conclusions."
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