Resistance to fracking disclosure may be 'Achilles' heel': Salazar
Washington (Platts)--14Feb2012/341 pm EST/2041 GMT
Concerns over potential contamination of drinking water from
hydraulic fracturing could be allayed by new rules requiring disclosure
of fracking chemicals that the US Interior Department will roll out in
the coming weeks, and a failure to be transparent about the ingredients
may doom the industry, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said Tuesday.
Salazar said the department would soon release three rules to guide
fracking on more than 700 million acres of federal land. The rules will
require companies to fully disclose chemicals used in fracking fluid,
set requirements to ensure the integrity of well bores and require
companies to manage flowback water so it does not contaminate streams,
Salazar said during a speech in Cleveland.
"To me, those rules are common sense," Salazar said in his speech to the
City Club of Cleveland, which was broadcast online. "And if we do not
move forward with that kind of program from the Department of Interior,
my own view is that the failure of disclosure and the failure of giving
the American people confidence that hydraulic fracturing will in fact
work will end up being the Achilles heel of the energy promise of
America."
Salazar said the rules will be formally released in the next several
weeks, and he said he hoped they would serve as a template for state and
federal regulation of fracking on private lands that are outside of
Interior's jurisdiction.
The secretary also stressed the administration's broad support for
natural gas in an effort to rebut industry criticisms of the impending
regulations. Salazar pointed to President Barack Obama's pro-gas
sentiments during the State of the Union address earlier this month and
ongoing efforts to provide incentives for increased natural gas use in
the transportation sector as evidence of that support.
A draft of the upcoming DOI disclosure rule obtained earlier this month
by Platts drew some initial concern from industry groups. For example, a
spokesman for the Independent Petroleum Association of America said at
the time that Interior should do a better job of incorporating the
voluntary FracFocus disclosure database into its rulemaking.
During a question-and-answer session at the City Club, one audience
member confronted Salazar with a different view. The man began to cry as
he told the secretary of that his water well had been deemed explosive
because of excess gas and that two of his neighbors were recently
diagnosed with cancer, outcomes he blamed on fracking activity that had
recently started near their property.
Salazar sympathized with the man's story, but maintained his overall
support for continued gas development in Ohio and elsewhere. He said the
potential contamination may have been caused by a drilling company
acting irresponsibly and said that rules like the ones Interior is
planning to release could prevent similar problems in the future.
--Nick Juliano,
nicholas_juliano@platts.com
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