Showy Snowy Sunflower

COLD SNAP RUNNER-UP: Morning frost hangs off the pedals of a sunflower in Cheyenne, WY. (Jenn Geringer/WyoFile)

Mead to meet with Pavillion residents to talk water supply

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead will meet with Pavillion area residents from 10:15 a.m. to 11:45 a.m. Monday to discuss strategies for a long-term drinking water supply. Residents in about two dozen homes currently rely on water filtration and commercial delivery service for drinking water due to health concerns related to groundwater in the area.

Currently, the state of Wyoming and EnCana Oil & Gas USA — the main operator of the Pavillion natural gas field — are paying for the water delivery service.

The meeting will be held at Central Wyoming College Intertribal Education and Community Center (room 116) in Riverton. “I am committed to the health and safety of the residents. We can explore a long term water strategy now while we wait for answers to other problems,” Mead wrote in a letter to Pavillion area resident John Fenton.

In 2009, many residents in the central Wyoming farming community were told by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry to not drink or cook with water from their domestic wells due to the presence of hydrocarbons and high levels of sodium, and to use ventilation while showering due to methane concentrations in the water.

Residents in the area have long suspected that natural gas drilling and production activity in the area may have tainted groundwater supplies, including the shallow aquifer that residents tap for domestic and agricultural supplies. Pavillion is now at the center of a national debate over the potential risks associated with hydraulic fracturing — or fracking — the method of pumping a mixture of water, sand and some chemicals under pressure to break open fissures in petroleum-bearing rock and shale formations to enhance the production of oil and natural gas.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is conducting an investigation of groundwater pollution in the Pavillion area, and the agency recently issued a draft report stating that oil and gas activity — including hydraulic fracturing — may contribute to the groundwater pollution.

“The findings (EPA’s) were immediately attacked by the state, industry and industry-friendly politicians,” Fenton said in a teleconference with the press on Tuesday. “All this while the people still sit here suffering the impacts and pretty much forgotten in all the political jousting that’s going on.”

The Wyoming Water Development Commission has studied potential water supply strategies, and in October issued a report (click here to download a PDF of the executive summary) recommending that rural residents form a water service district and possibly pay to extend a water pipeline from the town of Pavillion. Other options include individual water treatment systems, individual cisterns, or a central water well and distribution system. Estimated costs range from $175 per month for each individual home, to $1,225 per month.

“A whole house treatment system is upwards of $20,000, but they don’t remove a lot of the constituents we’re dealing with and it requires a huge amount of maintenance,” said Fenton.

Contact Dustin Bleizeffer at (307) 577-6069 or dustin@wyofile.com.

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BLM sets meetings for Gateway West sage grouse analysis

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is planning two informational meetings in February to present information and answer questions about the sage grouse habitat equivalency analysis (HEA) for the proposed Gateway West Transmission Line Project.

The HEA serves as one part of the Framework for Sage-Grouse Analysis for Interstate Transmission Lines, developed by the BLM, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Idaho Department of Fish and Game, and the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

The Gateway West Transmission Line project is jointly proposed by Idaho Power and Rocky Mountain Power. The project, if completed, would include the construction of nearly 1,100 miles of high voltage transmission lines across southern Wyoming and southern Idaho. The project applicants have applied to the BLM and U.S. Forest Service for right of way grants to construct, operate and maintain these transmission lines from the proposed Windstar substation near Glenrock, Wyo. to the proposed Hemingway substation near Melba, Idaho, approximately 20 miles southwest of Boise.

The informational meetings will be held in Wyoming and Idaho, as follows:

Cheyenne, Wyoming
Wednesday, Feb. 15
Noon – 4 p.m.
BLM Wyoming State Office
First Floor Conference Room
5353 Yellowstone Road

Boise, Idaho
Friday, Feb. 17
Noon – 4 p.m.
Red Lion Boise Hotel
Cottonwood Room
1800 Fairview Ave.

For more information, contact Walt George, BLM project manager, at 307-775-6116, or wgeorge@blm.gov.

BLM posts lease parcels for oil and gas sale

The Bureau of Land Management (BLM) Wyoming State Office has posted its proposed list of parcels to offer up to oil and gas companies for lease in the quarterly competitive oil and gas lease sale. The list includes 153 parcels in Albany, Carbon, Lincoln, Sweetwater and Uinta counties. The parcels represent 231,846,920 acres of public land. The posting of this list initiates the 30-day public protest period.

The complete May competitive oil and gas lease sale notice can be viewed and downloaded for free at: www.blm.gov/wy/st/en/programs/energy/Oil_and_Gas/Leasing.html. Also available at this website are the oil and gas leasing environmental assessments, including public comments, for the May oil and gas lease sale.

The oil and gas lease sale is scheduled for Tuesday, May 1, 2012, at the Holiday Inn in Cheyenne, Wyo. Doors open at 7 a.m. with the auction beginning at 8 a.m.

For more information, contact Beverly Gorny at (307) 775-6158.

Congressional research group issues report on EPA’s Pavillion investigation

This week, members of Congress received a report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS) regarding the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s draft report of the Pavillion groundwater contamination investigation.

EPA’s draft report, issued on December 8, stoked America’s ongoing debate over the oil and gas industry’s use of hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — by concluding that compounds found in the aquifer near Pavillion, Wyo., are likely associated with industry activity, including fracking.

This graphic explains the hydraulic fracking process. (Al Granberg/ProPublica — click to enlarge)

The CRS, a public policy research agency that reports directly to congressional committees and staff, found no obvious concerns with the legality and quality of EPA’s draft report. CRS provided a summary of EPA’s findings, along with a summary of formal comments submitted to EPA so far. Essentially, CRS reported to Congress what EPA’s draft report did and did not say.

“Detecting and distinguishing between potentially shallow and potentially deep sources of groundwater contamination lies at the heart of the primary findings in the EPA Draft Report,” CRS stated in its January 25 report to Congress. “Whether the (EPA) report clearly links groundwater contamination to drilling or hydraulic fracturing activities at depth has been the source of relatively heated commentary by proponents and opponents of the use of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas development.”

The CRS goes on to explain, “EPA did not appear to conclude that there was a definitive link to a release from the (oil and natural gas) production wells, nor to the constituents found in the domestic wells in the shallower portion of the aquifer. Absent such a link, EPA also did not conclude in its Draft Report that the constituents found in the aquifer were caused by a specific release that may pose a threat to human health or the environment at the Pavillion site.”

The public comment period on the draft report was extended through March 12. The draft report will undergo an “external review” by an independent panel of scientific experts, and nominations of experts to the panel are being accepted until February 17.

Fracking is the method of pumping a mixture of water, sand and a small amount of chemicals into petroleum-laden formations under high pressure to force open cracks in the shale and allow oil and natural gas to flow through production wells.

Wyoming stakeholders participating in the Pavillion groundwater contamination investigation had received a preliminary copy of EPA’s draft report before it was released on December 8. Immediately following the release, both EnCana Oil & Gas USA (the company that owns and operates the Pavillion gas field) and Wyoming state officials slammed the EPA and the report, questioning the agency’s methods and analysis.

John Fenton, a Pavillion area rancher among several who suspect oil and gas activity there may contribute to water contamination, told WyoFile on Thursday, “People around here are really disappointed about how the state has attacked this (EPA draft report).”

“I think there’s been a lot of misinformation about the whole process out here,” Fenton continued. “It’s disheartening because we tried and tried to get the state of Wyoming to do something about it.”

State and industry officials contend that the EPA is withholding important information related to the investigation that could help stakeholders judge the quality of EPA’s draft report, and say that much more monitoring, sampling and analysis is needed to draw conclusions about the source and extent of groundwater contamination in Pavillion.

Regarding the heated exchange between stakeholders over the EPA draft report, the CRS concluded, “… it is likely that proponents and opponents of hydraulic fracturing will continue to disagree over the EPA Draft Report’s main conclusions linking hydraulic fracturing chemicals, and perhaps the hydraulic fracturing process specifically, with groundwater contamination in the Pavillion area.”

The Energy and Environment Subcommittee will hold a hearing on Wednesday regarding EPA’s research of fracking, including the Pavillion groundwater contamination investigation. Witnesses scheduled to testify before the committee include Tom Doll, Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission supervisor; Kathleen Sgamma, vice president of government and public affairs for the Western Energy Alliance; Bernard Goldstein, professor and dean emeritus at University of Pittsburg’s Graduate School of Public Health; and Paul Anastas, assistant administrator of EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

No Pavillion area residents were invited to testify during the hearing, so several residents say they will take part in a teleconference at 11 a.m. on Tuesday to express their support of the EPA’s investigation. Speakers will include John Fenton, impacted landowner, chairman of the Pavillion Area Concern Citizens, board member of the Powder River Basin Resource Council; Louis Meeks, impacted resident, member of Powder River Basin Resource Council; Jeff Locker, impacted resident, member of Pavillion Area Concern Citizens; Wilma Subra, chemist and technical advisor, and president of Subra Co.

 — Click here to download a PDF of the CRS report.

— Visit the EPA’s Pavillion investigation website to download a PDF of the Draft Report, and view project updates.

Related stories:

— EnCana wants fracking expert on EPA’s review panel

— EnCana to EPA: Stop public comment on Pavillion fracking report

— EPA Pavillion report stokes fire over fracking

— Find the source in Pavillion

— EPA finds compound used in fracking in Wyoming aquifer

— One man’s mystery leads to backlash against fracking

Contact Dustin Bleizeffer at (307) 577-6069 or dustin@wyofile.com.

Graphic originally used in the ProPublica article “What Is Hydraulic Fracturing?”

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Reprinted with permission from High Country News. Not for republication by Wyoming media.

In 1954, the Empire State Oil Company drilled a gas well in central Wyoming. The well turned out dry but showed some gas in an unexpected shallow formation. It wasn’t worth much at the time, so Empire plugged the well and abandoned it. A geologist named John Wold, however, believed the area merited further exploration. “I thought for many, many years we ought to take another look at that,” he says.

So 55 years later, when the price of natural gas rose, Wold Oil Properties drilled a vertical well near the old site. Exploring for oil and gas in areas not known to harbor fuels in commercial volumes is called “wildcatting,” and it’s risky business: Only one or two out of every 10 wells produces enough to be viable. Each well costs $1 million to $5 million or more to drill, so a couple of dry holes can bankrupt a small company. Wold passed the business on to his sons, but at 95 he still comes into the office every day, hooked on the challenge.

Aaron Otteman, exploration manager for Wold Oil Properties, climbs a holding tank to check the depth of oil inside at a wildcat well his company operates in central Wyoming. (Emilene Ostlind/High Country News — click to enlarge)

In the U.S., independent companies — many of them multigenerational family-owned businesses like Wold’s — do most of the wildcatting, drilling more than 93 percent of the nation’s new oil and gas wells and accounting for about 67 percent of total oil and gas production. Meanwhile, major corporations like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips tend to wait for the wildcatters to strike black (or gassy) gold, then buy them out and develop the proven resources.

But wildcatting is becoming trickier as conventional reserves are depleted and drillers must figure out how to tap harder-to-reach stores of fuel. “We are burning more oil and gas in the world today than we are finding,” Wold says. “Every field you find is one less target. It’s getting harder and harder to find new prospects worth exploring.”

The U.S. passed peak domestic oil production around 1970. When prices dropped in the ’80s and ’90s, wildcatting slowed down. Then, in May 2000, a Montana contract geologist named Richard Findley became a wildcatting legend. He was just about to ditch prospecting to flip burgers in a buddy’s restaurant when he figured out how to open up North Dakota’s formerly unproductive Bakken Shale by marrying horizontal directional drilling with hydraulic fracturing. With that, he launched what’s now North America’s largest oil play and became a millionaire overnight.

The once sparsely populated North Dakota plains have since been transformed into an industrial landscape, from which more than 6 percent of U.S. domestic oil flows. And Findley’s breakthrough has started a whole new boom worldwide, opening dozens of other previously unreachable energy reserves — and inspiring wildcatters like Wold, who believes his company might be on the brink of discovering a significant new play near the old Empire well.

The pickup bucked over frozen snowdrifts on a March afternoon as Aaron Otteman drove toward the 2009 well. He hunched his tall frame to see out the windshield, his reddish beard jutting forward. A geologist by training, Otteman, 35, was hired as exploration manager for Wold Oil Properties in 2009. He grew up climbing and skiing in the mountains near Pinedale, Wyo., and got into geology because he wanted a career that would let him explore his home state. He grimaces when he thinks of how the recent Pinedale Anticline gas boom has industrialized his hometown, but, like Wold, he loves his job. It allows him to raise his children in Wyoming while using his scientific training for what he considers responsible, locally based energy development.

It’s hard work, finding oil and gas hidden thousands of feet underground. Fifty years ago, geologists relied on aerial photos and surface mapping to discover new reserves, looking for conventional traps such as domes of geologic layers buried underground, like a facedown onion half, holding the fossil fuels in place. These are obvious to a trained eye, especially in Wyoming’s treeless basins. But most of the easy targets were drilled long ago. Those once-valuable aerial images are now freely available through Google Earth; if you pick out an oval of colored striations in Wyoming and zoom in, you’ll likely see it pocked with oil wells.

“Rather than just mapping the surface like conventional geologists did back in the day, now we map the subsurface,” Otteman explained as the truck approached the well. Using his “three-headed girlfriend,” a computer with three monitors, he compiles any data he can get — geologic maps, seismic data, gravity and magnetic information, well logs from existing boreholes showing things like gamma rays, density and conductivity — and diagrams his best guess of what’s underground.

Otteman helped oversee the drilling of the 2009 vertical well, based on Wold’s hunch. It didn’t produce gas from the targeted formation, but there was a little oil from a layer of limestone at the bottom of a formation called the Niobrara Shale — the same layer that’s hosting a huge oil play some 200 miles away in the Denver-Julesburg Basin where Wyoming, Nebraska and Colorado meet.

“I said, ‘Well, that’s interesting,’ so I threw a lot of science at this well bore,” Otteman recalled.

He ran a suite of well logs. Then he used “a very small frack” — only 33,000 pounds of sand compared to the 5 million pounds used on deeper wells in thicker formations — to break up the limestone bench. When the frack fluid flowed back out, about 75 barrels of oil came with it, “a good show, but certainly not economic when you spend a million dollars on a well. And so I just sat here going, ‘Well, what do we do now?’ ”

A wild horse, its tail wrapped around its haunch by the wind, watched from a hill as Otteman parked on the gravel pad by the wellhead. He clamped a hardhat onto his head and scuttled up a ladder welded to the side of a 20-foot-tall tank to measure the depth of the oil inside. Then he climbed back down and cracked a valve on the wellhead, peering carefully at the pressure gauges. Gas hissed through the narrow metal pipe connected to the tank and gurgled up through the oil inside. After a while, oil followed, not much — around 30 barrels a week — but enough to convince Otteman to drill a second well nearby, this one horizontal, more expensive but better able to access the trapped oil, he hoped.

After eight months of permitting and regulatory hurdles, the company drilled the horizontal well in August 2011 and finished fracking it in November. “It’s not easy to find oil and gas in commercial volumes,” Otteman said worriedly at the time. “It’s incredibly expensive and there’s a lot of pressure, especially as the sole geologist on something saying, ‘OK, boss, I think you should go spend $2.6 million here on a small horizontal well and we can test this concept.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Well, no, I’m not sure.’ ” The new well cost over $3 million, enough to “make or break small folks if this does not work out,” Otteman explained.

In late December, oil production looked promising and Otteman sounded optimistic. Then, in early January, production fell off, and the well’s economic future became uncertain. “It’s a strikes and gutters game,” Otteman said. “Unfortunately, it seems like there are more gutters than strikes.”

Emilene Ostlind was a High Country News editorial fellow in the winter of 2011 and now works as a freelance journalist in Lander, Wyo.

Reprinted with permission from Environment & Energy Publishing, LLC. Not for republication by Wyoming media.

U.S. EPA’s decision to truck water to four homes in Dimock, Pa., is just its latest move to bypass state regulation of natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

From the suburbs of Fort Worth, Texas, to Pavillion, Wyo., to northeastern Pennsylvania, EPA officials have taken increasingly bold steps in drilling pollution cases, implying or even proclaiming that state officials did not do enough to protect their own residents.

It is generating friction between EPA and leaders in some of the states. One state official called EPA’s understanding of the Dimock situation “rudimentary.” Another called EPA’s Texas move a “frontal assault” on drilling.

To the oil and gas industry, EPA’s moves are a sign of the Obama administration’s underlying hostility to domestic petroleum production and signal interest in increased federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing.

“EPA is thinking very creatively about hydraulic fracturing,” said John Riley, a lawyer in Bracewell & Guiliani’s Austin office, who is involved in the suburban Fort Worth case, but commented only on the broader trend. He said the agency is using legal authority that is “questionable or even dubious.”

But some residents and activists have applauded EPA officials for taking on a powerful industry when state government was unable or unwilling.

“For some of us, they are our only hope,” said Sharon Wilson, an activist with Earthworks in Texas, who is also involved in the suburban Fort Worth case.

Publicly, President Obama has tried to walk a middle path regarding the boom in domestic oil and gas drilling. In his State of the Union speech Tuesday he stressed support for production, but he stressed it must be done safely.

That middle path is not an easy one. Environmentalists are unsettled by his support for drilling, and the industry does not believe him.

Republicans in Congress have also taken notice. They have accused the administration of doublespeak and they have scheduled a hearing for next week in the House Science Committee to lambaste the agency’s investigation in Wyoming. House Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), the Republicans’ chief inquisitor, is ramping up a probe into how EPA and DOE have dealt with hydraulic fracturing and shale gas drilling. Issa says the agency is not living up to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s stated support for state-based regulation.

State officials are the primary regulators of the country’s boom in onshore oil and gas drilling, and industry likes it that way. Industry officials say state officials more so than federal or local authorities, have the most local expertise.

Unlike EPA, state oil and gas agencies are not charged exclusively with protecting the environment and human health. State laws order most of them to balance regulation with promoting oil and gas development. And they frequently have close ties to the local industry.

Environmental groups and some Democrats have criticized state regulation of drilling. Democrats in Congress, such as Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Diana DeGette (D-Colo.) have introduced legislation to repeal an environmental exemption and give EPA more oversight of hydraulic fracturing. But the legislation is staunchly opposed by Republicans and failed to advance even when Democrats controlled Congress.

Wyo. probe, Texas dustup

The Wyoming investigation began in 2008, before Obama won the presidency. People in Pavillion, a small community in the middle of the state, had complained for years about problems with their water, but Wyoming oil and gas officials had taken no action against drillers, said Deb Thomas, an activist with the group Pavillion Area Concerned Citizens.

After initial testing, federal officials recommended in 2010 that some well owners use alternate sources of water for drinking and cooking. But the agency’s draft findings, released last month, yielded mixed results.

EPA scientists concluded that hydraulic fracturing fluid had contaminated the aquifer under Pavillion, interrupting the industry refrain that there has never been a documented case of water contamination from fracturing. But they said those chemicals had not reached the drinking water wells of people in the community. And EPA officials said contaminants did not exceed drinking water standards.

State officials have criticized EPA’s findings. Gov. Matt Mead (R) called them “scientifically questionable.” State Oil and Gas Supervisor Tom Doll suggested EPA might have accidentally contaminated the aquifer itself.

Mead has said the state should be in charge of the investigation. But critics say the state missed its chance when it failed to act before 2008.

“For over a decade the state failed to investigate, identify and address the contamination issues and huge human health impacts occurring in the Pavillion area,” Thomas said. “Our members believe Governor Mead and the state agencies should be thankful that the EPA came to Wyoming’s aid with the substantial funds and scientific expertise that is needed.”

EPA officials have been less critical of Wyoming officials. The chronology in the report makes no mention of state efforts, starting only when people in Pavillion complained.

In Texas, EPA pulled no punches when it overrode state officials to issue an emergency order against Range Resources Corp. in December 2010. The agency alleged that the company contaminated at least two water wells with methane and benzene.

Dallas-based EPA Regional Director Al Armendariz acted under the emergency provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act, which require EPA to determine that local authorities have not done enough to protect human health. When an Armendariz aide notified then-Railroad Commission Chairman Victor Carrillo, the state’s top oil and gas regulator, Carrillo replied with an email calling the federal action “premature.”

Armendariz forwarded Carrillo’s reply to EPA headquarters officials with a single-word message: “Stunning.”

In a hearing called shortly thereafter, the Railroad Commission exonerated Range. One member of the commission called EPA’s action “a frontal assault on domestic natural gas production.”

Still, EPA has not backed off from its emergency order. The case is pending in federal court, awaiting a ruling from an appeals court.

EPA has also weighed in on proposed new drilling rules in New York, suggesting improvements the state Department of Environmental Conservation could make and questioning whether the state has the resources to enforce the rules it is proposing. And in Pennsylvania last year, EPA pressed state officials to do more monitoring of Marcellus Shale drilling wastewater. The pressure came after The New York Times reported wastewater was being sent to treatment plants unable to handle the radioactive material it contains. Pennsylvania officials later reported radioactivity tests came back “at or below” safe levels (Greenwire, March 8, 2011).

The agency is doing a multi-year study of the safety of hydraulic fracturing. It will supplant a 2004 study that relied largely on reports from state agencies to conclude hydraulic fracturing presented little risk. This time, EPA has said it will test on its own.

‘Out on a limb’?

Dimock is the first of the interventions to take place even after a state investigated and punished a company for environmental violations.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection shut down some of Cabot Oil & Gas Co.’s wells, fined the company and negotiated a $4.1 million settlement in which all of the affected homeowners got at least two times the value of their home, and kept any mineral rights. The state’s investigation began after residents in the small community began complaining of cloudy, foul-smelling water in 2008.

Cabot also delivered water to affected homeowners until November, when state regulators agreed it could stop. The residents say their aquifer is still contaminated.

Since November, EPA has flip-flopped several times about how to handle Dimock. First, it said the water posed no health risk, then that it merited more study. Earlier this month, the agency promised to deliver water but reneged within 24 hours.

Then, last week, EPA flipped again. The agency announced it would test 60 wells and deliver water to four homes.

Cabot denies contaminating the wells, saying most wells in the region were laced with methane long before the arrival of drilling. In a letter to Jackson yesterday, Cabot CEO Dan Dinges said “EPA’s actions in Dimock appear to undercut the President’s stated commitment to this important resource, even in light of EPA’s regulatory mission.”

The EPA interventions have generated some barbed comments between EPA officials and Pennsylvania DEP Secretary Michael Krancer. First, Krancer sent EPA regional officials a letter stating the agency had only a “rudimentary” understanding of the Dimock situation. He also derided EPA’s Pavillion report as a “rush to conclusions.” The next day, Jackson told reporters his words were “puzzling” and not helpful to people in Dimock.

John Hanger, who oversaw the Dimock case as head of the Pennsylvania DEP under Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell (D), said he is all for more testing and monitoring. But he said what EPA has found does not necessarily point at contamination from drilling.

“It’s unusual for EPA to insert themselves. It does demonstrate the restraint EPA has shown in the past,” Hanger said. “Perhaps it demonstrates how far out on a limb they are now.”

Banner photo courtesy of the office of Senator Mark Udall.

Winter in the Tropics

The exiting tourists at the San Cristbal airport sport sunburns. The snorkelers have burned backsides, the sandal-wearers have burned feet, and nearly everyone, from young scuba divers to retiree cruise patrons, shows evidence of being touched by the tropical sun. The incoming travelers looked pretty pale in comparison. It’s winter in the tropics, except the word “winter” has no meaning here.

The whole big deal with the Galapagos Islands is that they were never connected to any of the continents, which distinguishes them from islands like Madagascar and Tasmania. These islands are of purely volcanic origin, lying 600 miles west of Ecuador and not close to anywhere else. (RT Cox/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

San Cristobal Island hosts one of two airports in the Galapagos Islands, at Puerto Baquerizo. The other is at Baltra Island, near Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island. There are four settlements in the Galapagos, supported by a bit of farming, some fishing and a flourishing tourist industry.

My group of 17 birdwatchers and naturalists were among the last to take advantage of a whirlwind one-week tour of all of the major islands before the Ecuadorian government’s new rules take effect. We counted 14 tour boats in one port and more at two of the major ports each day, while following several around in carefully sequenced visits to selected landing areas. The government’s new rules are going to spread out the tourist traffic over a larger area, reducing the daily pressure on many of the favorite sightseeing spots.

Creatures on the Galapagos allow tourists to walk right up to them; you hardly need a telephoto lens. (RT Cox/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

Creatures allow tourists to walk right up to them. Something has happened not only to the endemic species of lizards, iguanas, sea lions and birds that makes them hardly notice that hundreds of tourists are walking right by them, or over them, daily; the same thing happens with migratory birds. Yellow-crowned night herons, which would flush if I approached within 50 yards in Wyoming, just hang with you in the Galapagos. You hardly need a telephoto lens. I don’t think it’s the water; nearly all water everywhere is seawater.

There’s something about being serenaded by the songs of the yellow warblers while snorkeling with sea turtles, penguins, rays and tropical fish. And yes I burned several parts of my Wyoming-white anatomy.

Why go to the Galapagos Islands? It’s 70 to 80 degrees in January, excepting occasionally hotter temperatures on some of the bare lava islands. Isn’t that enough reason?

Birders want to go there because even though there are not hundreds of species to be seen, there are many which can be seen only there. The Galapagos Penguin and the Flightless Cormorant are two examples.

Divers and snorkelers go to experience clean clear water filled with sea turtles, sharks, rays, fish and underwater scenery. One can fly to one of the ports and hire dive boats on a day rate and stay in the hotels, or one can book a slot on a diving boat for a tour of the islands.

A Sally crab walks on a coral beach created by decay of coral reefs which were uplifted by volcanic action and destroyed. Walking among the coral bits is; I am told; equivalent to several expensive spa sessions in terms of manicuring one’s feet. (RT Cox/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

Others go for the views, the sea breeze, the incredible abundance of unusual wildlife (giant tortoises, marine iguanas, nesting colonies of seabirds), the lava formations, natural history lectures and a pampered shipboard lifestyle.

Our spotless boat, operated by Ecoventura, was crewed by nine multi-talented people, catering to 17 guests. The meals offered a welcome selection of high-protein, low-carb entrees with plenty of fruits and vegetables available. Sounds virtuous. The wine with dinner was free and the beer was cheap; so much for virtue. Everything on the boat was flawless and professional.

All sorties from the boat were by Zodiac rafts. Safety was obsessive job No. 1 with these folks, much more so than other boats we observed.

The only complaint I had was that we were often rushed. Government regulations allow each boat only a certain amount of onshore time at many landings, particularly those places where a lot of birds were nesting. Leisurely photography was interrupted by the guides, who were pleasant always but often insistent. This will change with the new regulations, which will require the tour boats to take two weeks to do a tour which we did in a week.

People come to the Galapagos for the views, the sea breeze, the incredible abundance of unusual wildlife, such as marine iguanas. (RT Cox/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

We had two naturalist guides, both native Ecuadorians, who had studied up on everything; history, botany, evolution, ecology, courtship and breeding behaviors. They knew their stuff. I confess I wandered off frequently in search of photo opportunities; I took about 2,700 photos during one day birding on the mainland and seven days in the islands.

Ecuador uses U.S. currency; they seem to especially like the Sacajawea dollars. Some of the tourist-oriented shops in the towns offered kitsch but many had some nice local and Ecuadorian art work which is worth having.

The volcanic geology is worth the trip. The whole big deal with these islands is that they were never connected to any of the continents, which distinguishes them from islands like Madagascar and Tasmania. These islands are of purely volcanic origin, lying 600 miles west of Ecuador and not close to anywhere else. Some islands are old enough to have enough weathering to have soil adequate for agriculture, whereas many are just too raw for much more than cactus.  In many places there is good sand, in some there is black sand, and in some there are coral beaches created by decay of coral reefs which were uplifted by volcanic action and destroyed. Walking among the coral bits is, I am told, equivalent to several expensive spa sessions in terms of manicuring one’s feet.

A red-footed booby on Genovesa Island in the Galapagos. I confess I wandered off frequently in search of photo opportunities; I took about 2,700 photos birding on the mainland and in the islands. (RT Cox/WyoFile — click to enlarge)

Lava tubes abound, created by lava flows melting their way through existing lava beds as the magma rushed to the sea.  There are places where the crashing surf pushes water hundreds of feet through these tubes and crevices, creating spectacular blowholes and sinkholes. On Santa Cruz Island one can walk for hundreds of yards through a monster lava tube, only to greet monster tortoises upon emerging.

Towering lava cliffs afford abundant opportunities for nesting seabirds. All is not Peaceable Kingdom here; the Galapagos Hawks strafe the cliff nests seeking to panic gulls and tropic birds into flight, leaving nests vulnerable.

More photographs are coming with the next installment.

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Find the source in Pavillion

Perhaps it’s not where the focus should be. But the fact is there are two factions vigorously competing to make Pavillion their own posterchild.

Some individuals and groups want to use Pavillion’s water pollution case as evidence that hydraulic fracturing — or “fracking” — poses an inordinate risk to drinking water in Pavillion and elsewhere across the country. And the oil and gas industry would love to point to Pavillion’s water pollution case as evidence of how anti-industry sentiments have wrongly implicated a perfectly safe and properly managed activity.

Dustin Bleizeffer

Both sides were served a heaping portion of red meat last week when the Environmental Protection Agency released a draft report of its sampling and analysis. “The draft report indicates that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing,” EPA summarized in a press release.

Yet the narrative in the report stopped short of determining a certain link to specific drilling, production and fracking activities in the decades-old natural gas field. And the EPA’s methods and analysis left plenty of opportunity for state and industry officials to add red-ink in the margins of the report; the sampling events were too few, some “blank” control samples turned up contaminated, and the two water monitoring wells drilled at the direction of EPA were sunk awfully close to the actual petroleum production zone, according to industry and state officials.

It appears that after five years of investigation both state and federal agencies are unable — technically and politically — to determine how oil and gas activity in Pavillion interacted with a freshwater aquifer and domestic water wells. Of course the ones who suffer most are the residents who still have no definitive answers to why their water is polluted, or what they’ll do for a long-term solution.

“The report really didn’t say anything that most of us who live here didn’t already know and expect would come out in a report. But it is nice to have it backed up with some scientific data,” Pavillion area resident Jeffrey Locker told WyoFile in a recent interview. “You know, there’s a little bit of frustration (with) the state of Wyoming. We asked them to look at this … and never got anything.”

Jeffrey Locker stands next to a natural gas well behind his home near Pavillion. (Dustin Bleizeffer/WyoFile - click to enlarge)

While Wyoming is taking smart measures to better manage drilling and fracking activities on the front end (baseline testing, monitoring, chemical disclosure requirements, groundwater inventories and the formation of a new groundwater protection program), it’s clear that Wyoming wasn’t prepared to quickly serve its citizens when a problem did arise. That’s why after more than two years of asking for help from the state, residents bypassed Cheyenne and drove to Denver to convince the EPA Region 8 Office to get involved.

“The residents out there contacted EPA and got EPA involved, and by the way, we welcomed that because EPA could bring a lot more resources (than the state),” Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality administrator John Corra told WyoFile. In fact, early in the state’s investigation, DEQ staff often consulted with their EPA counterparts about how to proceed. As for the frustration among Pavillion residents; “We were not able to give them the answers they wanted in the timeframe they wanted,” Corra said.

Locker and his neighbors deserve a conclusive determination of the source of pollution, because their property values have fallen and any new long-term water supply system is going to come with significant costs. If EnCana or its predecessors are responsible for any portion of the polluted drinking water supply, it ought to be held liable to pay its fair share. If it’s proven conclusively that drilling, production and fracking activities did not contribute to the polluted water, then EnCana ought to be thanked for providing much needed drinking water in the interim.

The investigative team may never produce enough scientific evidence to convince the pro- and anti-fracking extremes seeking to claim Pavillion for their own cause. But that shouldn’t deter the state and EPA from pursuing this investigation all the way to the source of pollution. And that decision currently resides with Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead, who recently said he will ask the legislature for more money to continue the investigation.

About a year ago, EPA officials agreed that while the agency will continue to participate in the Pavillion investigation, the state of Wyoming would officially take the lead. Leading the state’s investigation are representatives of the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission and the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, which are participants in the “Pavillion working group.” Lately, the focus of that group has been to inventory data related to well bore integrity and mud pits in the Pavillion area (many known to be polluted) and analyze the potential contribution from those sources. Corra said the state also intends to conduct much more water sampling in the Pavillion area, including from the two EPA monitoring wells.

Tanks hold natural gas condensate and mark the spot of producing gas wells in the Pavillion field, in Fremont County, Wyo., in the heart of the Wind River Indian Reservation. The Environmental Protection Agency has found chemicals that are used in gas drilling in water wells near this site. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica)

Locker and other Pavillion residents participate in the working group, as do representatives from EnCana, EPA and the two tribes from the Wind River Indian Reservation. Locker said he’s pleased, so far, with the group’s efforts, but he does have some concerns about the leadership.

“You tend to see the discussion led in certain ways,” said Locker. “Maybe it’s time to bring in an unbiased facilitator.”

The cohesiveness and integrity of the Pavillion working group will be critical to moving the investigation forward. The potential pitfalls are many, including the fact that both state agencies are currently picking apart the EPA draft report before it goes to peer review by an independent panel of scientists, while at the same time they are stepping in to conduct the next rounds of sampling. Will this next round of sampling led by the state undergo the same public comment and independent peer review process currently underway at EPA? It should.

The fact that there’s so much national attention on Pavillion isn’t a bad thing, despite the inevitable political pressures that come with it. Fracking is just a technology and a tool, and it would be ludicrous to ban a technology based on one, or a handful, of accidents. Just as it would be ludicrous to insist that perforating freshwater aquifers with tens of thousands of new wells each year is done with 99.9 percent integrity and near-zero chance of cross-formation leakage. Go tell it to the fishermen in the Gulf Coast.

In meantime, it’s appropriate to withhold judgment of EPA’s draft report until after the peer review panel is finished. And it’s still OK to scrutinize the work of industry and regulatory entities. After all, both the energy industry and the state have plenty of red ink on their performance records in Wyoming and elsewhere, of late.

It’s no surprise that a recent Office of Inspector General report concluded, “State enforcement programs are underperforming: EPA data indicate that noncompliance is high and the level of enforcement is low. EPA does not consistently hold states accountable for meeting enforcement standards, has not set clear and consistent national benchmarks, and does not act effectively to curtail weak and inconsistent enforcement by states.”

At a press conference in Cheyenne last week, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said that no matter the ultimate results of the Pavillion investigation he will not make fracking the Achilles heel of the oil and gas industry, as some may fear.

“We do believe that fracking can be done and can be done in a safe way,” said Salazar. “That doesn’t mean we won’t make sure water is protected … and we won’t move forward to institute appropriate levels of disclosure.”

— Contact Dustin Bleizeffer at (307) 577-6069 or dustin@wyofile.com.

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