Feds urge Wyoming town with contaminated wells to find other sources of drinking water

Feds: Don’t drink contaminated water in Wyo. town

PAVILLION, Wyo. — People shouldn’t drink water from 40 wells in and around this central Wyoming farming and ranching community, federal officials said Tuesday.

The announcement by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services coincided with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency releasing its latest findings from testing water wells in the Pavillion area.

Meanwhile, Encana Oil & Gas, a subsidiary of Encana Corp., announced that it has volunteered to pay for those affected to get clean drinking water.

EPA testing of 23 water wells in January found low levels of hydrocarbons in 17 residential water wells sampled. Samples from four stock and irrigation wells and two municipal wells did not show hydrocarbon contamination.

The hydrocarbons may - or may not - be related to oil and gas drilling in the Pavillion area from the 1960s to the latest day. EPA officials expect more testing, including tests from two just-drilled monitoring wells, to answer that question sooner or later.

Either way, it wasn’t only hydrocarbons but high levels of sodium, sulfates and other inorganic compounds that prompted the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to urge people Tuesday to treat their well water or find some other source of drinking water.

The EPA has found high levels of the inorganic materials - believed naturally present - in all but one of 41 wells tested since last year.

“The other 40 should look at some treatment process or alternate source,” said Michelle Watters, a medical officer with the agency within federal health department.

Watters addressed a public meeting of about 100 people at the Pavillion community center.

Those in the audience included John Fenton, a farmer and rancher who said he has headaches almost daily. He believes they result from oil and gas industry pollution.

Fenton and his family haven’t been drinking their water for over a year. They still use their well water to shower but ventilate the bathroom well, he said.

“I’m still leery about that,” he said of showering with the well water.

The federal health agency said breathing vapors from contaminated water probably isn’t a health concern for people with hydrocarbons in their wells.

The EPA and ATSDR have been meeting with the owners of contaminated wells. Fenton said he’s reviewing the test result for their well.

“We’re not scientists. We’ll have to read through them as best we can,” he said.

Encana Oil & Gas has been drilling in the area since 2005. The company contends the hydrocarbon pollution occurred before 2005 and might not result from oil and gas drilling, Encana spokesman Doug Hock said.

“It’s inconclusive,” he said. “What we do know is the key constituents related to oil and gas did not exceed EPA or state of Wyoming standards.”

Even so, Encana will pay for people to clean up their well water or get drinking water from elsewhere, Hock said.

Some have speculated that hydraulic fracturing, a process that involves pumping pressurized water, chemicals and sand into oil and gas wells, caused the pollution. The EPA has neither identified nor ruled out “fracking” as the problem.

“It’s probably all sorts of different contaminants,” said Deb Thomas, with the Powder River Basin Resource Council, which has been working with Pavillion area landowners.

“Who knows. The jury is still out on that one.”

(This version clarifies that hydrocarbons also cause for recommendation not to drink water; also corrects last name to ‘Watters’)