Setting up a water archive

In our July 9 editorial discussing the importance of testing our water in neighborhoods where natural gas leases have been signed, we omitted discussion of a crucial point: it is just as important to have your water tested after drilling has ceased as before it starts.

According to the law discussed in that editorial, Section 208 of the Pennsylvania Oil & Gas Act, any contamination detected by testing would be presumed to be caused by drilling activity for only six months after drilling activity ceases. Similar bills pending in New York have the same time limit. And not all of the toxic contaminants that could enter the aquifer are easily detectible by sight or smell, giving us no cues that testing might be in order. The impact of toxins might, in fact, not be felt until they had actually created chronic illness in the people and/or pets, livestock, fauna and flora on a property—and since it takes a while for chronic disease to develop, that could be a matter of years.

The fact that drilling will be presumed to have caused contamination, unless it can be shown that the water was contaminated ahead of time, gives the drilling companies an incentive to pay for testing before drilling begins. But they have no such incentive to pay for post-testing; quite the contrary.

We were interested to see that a couple of sample lease forms that have been distributed on the Upper Delaware Community Network online, apparently being used as models by the Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance (NWPOA), contained provisions for both pre-testing and post-testing, to be paid for by the drilling company. This strikes us as a smart idea, and we would strongly suggest that anyone in New York or Pennsylvania who has any thoughts of signing a lease include similar provisions.

But we would like to suggest going a step further: we think the state governments should establish water archives in which water samples for each drinking well or surface drinking water source would be collected by a government agency both before drilling and less than six months afterwards, and stored in a facility where it could be used if necessary as legal evidence if questions subsequently arise.

Having such samples would be useful, in part, because property owners have no way to determine exactly what chemicals they should be testing for. If chronic illnesses show up over the years that might be due to chemicals used in fracking, but those particular chemicals weren’t tested for, there would still be an opportunity to glean evidence from water sampled during the statutory period.

Because a water archive like this would involve collection only, and not testing, there would be no laboratory fees involved and the cost would hopefully be nominal. That also means, however, that this program should probably only supplement, and not replace, any steps particular individuals might take toward getting their water tested just before and after drilling.

Of course, testing the water after illness had already developed is closing the barn door after the horse has bolted—which just goes to underline the kind of risks we are undertaking in allowing fracking in our area at all. But, it’s better than nothing.

In Pennsylvania, provisions to establish water archives could perhaps be added to the abovementioned Section 208 of the Oil & Gas Act. New York has no such law in place but has several related bills pending, including A4616 (Senate version 2997), which is virtually identical to the Pennsylvania law. Another bill, A8784, requires that the permit holder (gas drillers) should be responsible for testing water both before and after drilling—but for the abovementioned reasons, we believe maintaining a water archive would still be a good idea even in this case. All these bills are currently languishing in committee.

We encourage those New Yorkers who are concerned about their water supplies to call their representatives and urge action to see that these bills are worked on. We encourage residents of Pennsylvania and New York to raise with their representatives the issue of testing water after drilling and how it is to be paid for. If you don’t like our suggestion, maybe you have some ideas of your own.

Dr. Punnybone