Pennsylvania lawsuit says drilling polluted water

By Jon Hurdle

AVELLA, Pennsylvania (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania landowner is suing an energy company for polluting his soil and water in an attempt to link a natural gas drilling technique with environmental contamination.

George Zimmermann, the owner of 480 acres in Washington County, southwest Pennsylvania, says Atlas Energy Inc. ruined his land with toxic chemicals used in or released there by hydraulic fracturing.

Water tests at three locations by gas wells on Zimmermann's property -- one is 1,500 feet from his home -- found seven potentially carcinogenic chemicals above "screening levels" set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as warranting further investigation.

Jay Hammond, general counsel for Atlas, said Zimmermann's claims are "completely erroneous" and that the company is in compliance with Pennsylvania's gas-drilling regulations. Hammond said Atlas will "vigorously" defend itself in court and declined further comment.

But Zimmermann says he has evidence that chemicals used by Atlas contaminated his land.

"There are substances that can't be made by nature and that's what's in the ground," he told Reuters during an interview in his 12,000-square-foot house on a remote hilltop.

Atlas is exploiting the Marcellus Shale, a vast gas reserve that underlies about two-thirds of Pennsylvania and parts of West Virginia, Ohio and New York State. Experts estimate it contains enough natural gas to meet total U.S. demand for at least a decade.

The gas is being extracted by hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking", in which a mixture of water, sand and chemicals is forced a mile or more underground at high pressure, fracturing the shale and causing the release of natural gas.

Development of the Marcellus, together with other major shale fields in Texas, Louisiana and other states, is being aided by advances in fracking combined with horizontal drilling, which provides more exposure to a formation than a vertical well and leads to less surface disturbance.

If Zimmermann wins his case, it would be the first in America to prove that hydraulic fracturing causes water contamination. Such a finding could slow the development and use of cleaner-burning natural gas that would reduce American dependence on overseas energy.

PERFECT BASELINE TESTS

Baseline tests on Zimmermann's water a year before drilling began were "perfect," he said. In June, water tests found arsenic at 2,600 times acceptable levels, benzene at 44 times above limits and naphthalene five times the federal standard.

Soil samples detected mercury and selenium above official limits, as well as ethylbenzene, a chemical used in drilling, and trichloroethene, a naturally occurring but toxic chemical that can be brought to the surface by gas drilling.

The chemicals can cause many serious illnesses including damage to the immune, nervous and respiratory systems, according to the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a researcher of the health effects of chemicals used in drilling.

Zimmermann's suit, filed in September in the Washington County Court of Common Pleas and obtained by Reuters, follows claims by residents in many gas-drilling areas of the United States that fracking pollutes private water wells with toxic chemicals and threatens widespread contamination of aquifers from which many rural households draw drinking water.