The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this week that, following the installation of treatment at five drinking water wells in Dimock, Pa., its sampling indicates that no further action is needed.
The agency did not connect any contaminants detected with hydraulic fracturing.
"Our goal was to provide the Dimock community with complete and reliable information about the presence of contaminants in their drinking water and to determine whether further action was warranted to protect public health," said EPA Region 3 Administrator Shawn M. Garvin.
"The sampling and an evaluation of the particular circumstances at each home did not indicate levels of contaminants that would give EPA reason to take further action," Garvin said.
Dimock has been the focus of intense water quality sampling by state and federal regulators since residents alleged drinking water problems connected with natural gas production activity Cabot Oil and Gas had begun in the area in 2008.
EPA visited Dimock in late 2011 to follow up on controversy between residents, Cabot and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
The agency said it surveyed residents regarding their private wells and reviewed hundreds of pages of drinking water data supplied to the agency by Dimock residents, the PADEP and Cabot.
Because data for some homes showed elevated contaminant levels, EPA decided to conduct well sampling to evaluate whether residents had access to safe drinking water.
Between January and June 2012, the agency said in its media release, it sampled private drinking water wells serving 64 homes, including two rounds of sampling at four wells where it was delivering temporary water supplies as a precautionary step in response to prior data.
As a result of the EPA's two rounds of sampling at these four wells, it said, it has determined that it is no longer necessary to provide residents with alternative water. At one of the wells, the agency did find an elevated level of manganese in untreated well water. The two residences serviced by the well each have water treatment systems that can reduce manganese to levels that do not present a health concern.
The agency is working with residents on the schedule to disconnect the alternate water sources.
Overall, the agency said it found hazardous substances — specifically arsenic, barium or manganese, all of which are also naturally occurring substances — in well water at five homes at levels that could present a health concern.
In all cases, the residents have now or will have their own treatment systems that can reduce concentrations of those hazardous substances to acceptable levels at the tap.
EPA has provided the residents with all of their sampling results and has no plans to conduct additional drinking water sampling in Dimock.
"As with the other findings, EPA did not indicate that those contaminants that were detected bore any relationship to oil and gas development in the Dimock area," Cabot said in a statement it issued following the EPA release.
"Cabot will continue to cooperate with federal, state and local officials in using the best and most accurate science to address public concerns," the company's statement said.
For more information on the results of the EPA sampling, visit www.epa.gov/aboutepa/states/pa.html.
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