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‘Critical mistakes’ were made in groundwater report: Encana

Some of the chemicals detected in water samples taken by the Environmental Protection Agency in Pavillion, Wyo., were likely due to the EPA’s own errors and not Encana Corp.’s natural gas drilling, a company official said Tuesday.

CALGARY — Some of the chemicals detected in water samples taken by the Environmental Protection Agency in Pavillion, Wyo., were likely due to the EPA’s own errors and not Encana Corp.’s natural gas drilling, a company official said Tuesday.

David Stewart, who is in charge of environment, health and safety for the Wyomng operations, said cement the EPA used in wells to test water was more likely to blame for contamination than the chemicals Encana (TSX:ECA) uses to draw natural gas from rocks in a process called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

“It is our belief that the EPA made critical mistakes and misjudgments at almost every step in the process — from the way it designed the study to the way it drilled and completed its wells to the way it collected and interpreted the data and to its decision to release a preliminary draft report without independent third-party review,” Stewart said.

Most of the man-made compounds the EPA found weren’t even used by Encana in the fracking process at Pavillion, Stewart told a conference call.

“Those that are used consisted of single-test detection that can’t be duplicated, and has not been spatially tied to natural gas wells in the vicinity of the EPA deep wells.”

Earlier this month, the EPA released a draft report that said fracking — in which sand, water and chemicals are blasted into rock deep underground to release natural gas — may be to blame for groundwater pollution in the small Wyoming community.

The EPA said chemical compounds likely associated with fracking had been detected in the groundwater. Pavillion residents have said their well water reeks of chemicals and health officials warned them last year not to drink it.

On Tuesday’s call, Stewart reiterated many of the rebuttals Encana made to the EPA draft report last week and repeated the company’s call for an independent third-party review.

Among its concerns, Encana said the two monitoring wells the EPA drilled into the natural gas reservoir were up to 300 metres deep, whereas groundwater wells are typically less than a third of that depth.

The company also said the report ignores the history of the Pavillion area, where water quality issues pre-date natural gas development.

Encana is one of North America’s biggest natural gas producers, with operations in Western Canada, the southeastern United States and elsewhere. It pioneered many of the fracking techniques used by the industry.

Encana shares rose 23 cents to $18.79 on the Toronto Stock Exchange.