Earth Protect Blog

The revelation this month from Physicians for Social Responsibility that the oil and gas industry in Colorado has been using a chemical that will eventually break down into a highly-toxic forever chemical in the PFAS family is disturbing, to say the least.

The Environmental Protection Agency, which has been slowly developing regulations for the use of PFAS across all industries, and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, which regulates fracking in Colorado, should respond immediately.

Reporting from The Denver Post and the New York Times on this issue makes it clear that the chemicals have likely been used in many hydraulic fractured wells in Colorado, and that it could be used far more often than reported as the industry notoriously uses claims of proprietary information to keep chemicals secret. Colorado’s director of the COGCC has the power to force the industry to disclose when and where these chemicals have been used and will be used. Julie Murphy should do so, immediately.

The American Petroleum Institute is adamant that the report from Physicians for Social Responsibility is simply wrong and that, at least industry members of the API, are not currently using chemicals that break down into PFAS.

“It shouldn’t be used and it isn’t being used,” said Lynn Granger, executive director of the API.

If that is the case, then those members should have no problem disclosing any chemicals in the PFAS family or that is known to break down to PFAS to the COGCC in the coming months. The public has a right to know whether forever chemicals are being pumped into the ground, first to frack and then to be stored away in injection wells that would be rendered forever Superfund sites by PFAS contaminants.

The Denver Post’s Judith Kohler reported last week that an analysis of data posted onto the website FracFocus showed that the chemical polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), commonly known as Teflon was being used in wells.

This chemical degrades in nature to become a class of PFAS that can be unhealthy for humans, especially when they contaminate drinking water. You may recognize the brand name Teflon because it’s used to coat your kitchen skillet. Scientists have not studied whether older pans coated with these chemicals can leach PFAS into food or emit a toxic gas when overheated.

And this is why the EPA’s action on PFAS is essential. It’s time for the EPA to invest the money it needs to determine safe and unsafe uses for PFAS whether it’s in cookware or fracking fluid.

People living near fracking operations and wells, especially those relying on groundwater wells for drinking, should be concerned. It’s important to note that in 2015 two independent studies showed that there was very rarely contamination of drinking water from hydraulically fractured wells, but rarely is not never. It’s unclear, however, if those studies looked for PFAS-type chemicals.

Aside from those concerns, there’s the broader concern that the fracking process utilizes on average 14 million gallons of water per well in Colorado.

If that water is, in fact, being contaminated with PFAS — chemicals that will not break down for millenniums and for which there are very few remediation options — then massive amounts of water are being lost to future generations.

Members of The Denver Post’s editorial board are Megan Schrader, editor of the editorial pages; Lee Ann Colacioppo, editor; Justin Mock, CFO; Bill Reynolds, general manager/ senior vp circulation and production; Bob Kinney, vice president of information technology; and TJ Hutchinson, systems editor.

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