Unfortunately, the US legally permits entities that engage in unconventional methods of oil and gas exploration to vastly contaminate aquifers, lakes, streams, diminish air quality, and augment the frequency and intensity of injection induced seismicity. In 2016 the USGS confirmed that HF wastewater injection significantly influences earthquake nucleation, and that the volume of injected produced water controls the actual quantity of induced seismicity incidences.
The EPA of 2005, 42 U.S.C. § 15801, established a decentralized approach regarding HF guidance, and inaugurated a substantial loop hole in federal regulation, making it exceptionally difficult to hold any corporation accountable for environmental infractions. The EPA of 2005, 42 USC § 15801 exempted HF from CWA, 33 USC § 1251, CAA 42 USC § 7401, and SWDA, 42 USC § 300f. The US Congress has also exempted the use of all hazardous HF fluid contaminants, by protecting this profitable enterprise under the RCRA, 42 USC § 6962.
Employing longitudinal quantitative research processes on US EPA and DOE government data revealed that HF wells located in the US, injected 250 billion gallons of water along with 5 billion gallons of toxic chemicals into wellbores from 2005-2012. A NY DEC analysis performed in 2011, which focused on produced HF wastewater, discovered numerous hazardous materials such as As, Sb, 56Ba, Cd, Cr, Cu, Fe, Pb, 28Ni, Ag, Sr, Tl, Ti, and hundreds of other biological inhibitors.
Results/Conclusions
Exercising extensive qualitative explanatory research, by reviewing thousands of informational documents published by 153 US NGO’s, who all focused on HF related human rights violations, revealed that a vast majority of residents of communities adversely impacted, are exceptionally concerned with the potential threat of unknown contamination in their water supply.
Applying an analytical jurisprudence approach, utilizing qualitative, longitudinal, and explanatory indagation, this study has concluded that federal legislators can enact safe regulations under U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3, articulated in 312 U.S. 100 (1941), reaffirmed by 317 U.S. 111 (1942), and 514 U.S. 549 (1995). Until the US Congress decides to enact legislation that can culminate this colossal ecological, economic, and legal dilemma, state governments or local municipalities must immediately implement prudent measures to sustain optimum biodiversity levels in degraded habitats, and to circumvent a potential premature environmental extirpation.