Tuesday, May 03, 2011
Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas
by Jack Z. Smith
Range Resources, fighting claims by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that it "caused or contributed" to the contamination of two Parker County, Texas, water wells, says in court filings that the EPA's conclusions are "sheer guesswork" based on "threadbare-thin" reasoning.
In filings with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans, Range also argues that the EPA's Dec. 7 emergency order against the Fort Worth-based natural gas producer requires the company to engage in fact-finding efforts that the agency itself should have undertaken.
The EPA pinpointed two Range natural gas wells, drilled more than a mile deep into the Barnett Shale, as the likely sources of methane contamination in the residential water wells in far south Parker County that are approximately 200 to 220 feet deep. Methane is the chief component of natural gas.
Range said "there is 5,500 feet of the earth's strata separating the bottom of the private water wells from the subsurface horizontal sections" of its gas wells, and that the EPA order "does not even set forth a theory how gas could migrate from Range's wells to the aquifer."
Range says the EPA's order imposed costly and excessive requirements far beyond the scope required to ensure protection of the drinking-water supplies of the two contaminated wells, which served nine people.
The EPA declined to provide specific responses to Star-Telegram questions about Range's criticisms of the agency's investigation. The EPA said Friday that it "stands by the order" and "seeks to ensure that the contamination found in the drinking water wells ... is properly addressed." The EPA said it would soon file briefs responding to Range.
Among Range's contentions, the company said the order directed it "to engage in long-term and costly remedial action, including conducting an extensive study of a 20-county aquifer [the Trinity Aquifer], identifying gas flow pathways anywhere within that aquifer regardless of the source and preparing a plan to eliminate those flows and remediate any area of the aquifer that has been impacted from gas from any source."
David Poole, senior vice president and general counsel for Range, estimated that the company already has spent $1.5 million to $1.75 million defending itself against the EPA order.
Range says the EPA ignored advice from an agency chemist, Doug Beak, to do more analytical work before concluding that Range's gas wells caused the contamination. Range obtained a Nov. 28 e-mail that Beak sent to Chris Lister, an EPA environmental engineer involved in the contamination investigation.
Beak said in the e-mail that data the EPA obtained from testing natural gas from a Range well and the gas in one of the contaminated water wells showed strong similarities, but that "this is not conclusive evidence."
The U.S. Justice Department filed a complaint in a Dallas federal court Jan. 20, saying that Range failed to comply with the EPA's order. Range appealed to the 5th Circuit, seeking the order's dismissal.
The EPA continues to oppose Range's request to take sworn depositions of Lister and another EPA official, Jerry Saunders, who were involved in the contamination investigation.
While the EPA says Range "caused or contributed" to the contamination, Range repeatedly has noted that John Blevins, the EPA official who signed the order, later retreated somewhat, saying in a Jan. 25 sworn deposition that Range "may" have caused or contributed to it.
The Texas Railroad Commission found March 29 that the Range gas wells did not contaminate the water wells. The commission agreed with staff examiners and Range consultants that the gas in the water wells likely came from the shallow Strawn geological formation, which is only a few hundred feet deep and into which some gas wells were drilled in the early 1980s.
The EPA did not participate in that inquiry.
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