GRAND JUNCTION, CO — The gas drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking” and “fracing,” already has contaminated the Divide Creek in western Colorado with benzene and methane, and residents and lawmakers want a change in laws that now protect the practice, The Christian Science Monitor reported in the February 5 edition.

Fracking, also known as hydrofracking, is a technique that uses water to drill for natural gas and is criticized as being environmentally unsafe. The water is pumped into deep wells under pressure to crack rock formation and release trapped natural gas, a process that contaminates the water. There also is concern about the chemicals used in hydrofracking water.

Geologist Geoffrey Thyne of the University of Wyoming, whose analysis of the large gas fields around Divide Creek found elevated methane and chloride levels in groundwater samples, said in the article, “They are injecting fluid that may or may not be hazardous into thousands of wells and not recovering all of it. We have to ask, what is in those fluids and where does the fluid go?”

The composition of hydraulic fracturing fluids is proprietary, and energy companies want it to remain that way. That confidentiality is protected by the federal Energy Policy Act of 2005, which exempted hydraulic fracturing from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act, the article said.

US Reps. Diana DeGette and John Salazar, both Democrats from Colorado, have introduced legislation that would repeal the Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for hydraulic fracturing and force energy companies to reveal the contents of the fracturing fluids. DeGette told The Christian Science Monitor in a phone interview, “Communities have a right to know what is potentially threatening their water.”

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