Rural Community Assistance Partnership

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ground water

An overview of EPA Ground Water Rules

This page is an overview of the series of articles on the Ground Water Rule written by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and published in recent issues of Rural Matters magazine.

The goal of this series of articles is to help ground water systems navigate their way through the Ground Water Rule (GWR) requirements.

CBS's "60 Minutes" looks at fracking

The Nov. 14 episode of CBS's "60 Minutes" included a segment on natural gas drilling in a process called hydraulic fracturing, also sometimes called fracking. The report focused on the discovery of vast amounts of natural gas in the U.S., which could supply all of the nation's energy needs for years to come and the people who have become wealthy after allowing natural gas to be extracted from shale rock on their property. The report focused briefly on the potential harm to the ground water that this process causes.

 

Eight of nine U.S. companies agree to work with EPA regarding chemicals used in natural gas extraction

EPA conducting congressionally mandated study to examine the impact of the hydraulic fracturing process on drinking water quality; Halliburton subpoenaed after failing to meet EPA’s voluntary requests for information

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced Nov. 9 that eight out of the nine hydraulic fracturing companies that received voluntary information requests in September have agreed to submit timely and complete information to help the agency conduct its study on hydraulic fracturing.