Colorado has one of the most stringent sets of rules in the country for testing groundwater in and around oil and gas drilling, but that doesn’t mean every question has been settled.
That’s why we were pleased to hear details of a pilot program for real-time water-quality monitoring that will provide concerned citizens with more information than ever before.
Colorado State University’s effort is being conducted with Noble Energy and several government agencies. It ultimately will have a website that will allow citizens to view the results.
Former Gov. Bill Ritter Jr., who is on the project’s steering committee, said there are three test wells near hydraulic fracturing activity that continuously monitor aquifers and have been doing so for seven to eight months.
The monitoring is different from anything in existence and is meant to complement other efforts, Ritter said.
The plan, Ritter added, is to roughly double the existing program and continue to gather data.
It’s a worthy effort that has the potential to relieve some of the concerns of those who live near oil and gas activity. There is no substitute for hard data gathered by an impartial source.
Not that science has been silent on the issue of fracking’s effect on groundwater. A number of studies, including two released earlier this month by Duke University and the U.S. Department of Energy, have discounted fears that fracking fluids are migrating from where they are injected up through the shale and into drinking water supplies.
But the CSU study appears to approach the issue from a unique perspective, and should add to the growing body of science. And it couldn’t be more timely, given this state’s ongoing efforts to refine its regulations.
