Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Lisa P. Jackson, the administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, at microphone, testifying before a House Appropriations subcommittee on Thursday. At her side was Barbara Bennett, the agency’s chief financial officer.
Testifying before Congress on Thursday, Obama administration officials said they planned to scrutinize the waste disposal practices of natural gas producers after reports that drilling wastewater containing radioactive material was being dumped in public waters without proper monitoring or treatment.
Lisa P. Jackson, the Environmental Protection Agency administrator, appearing at a hearing of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Environment, said she would order testing for radioactivity at water treatment plants that receive drilling wastewater as well as intake sites for public drinking water downstream from such plants.
An investigative series in The Times has documented how wastewater from natural gas wells is commonly released into public waterways
without being treated for the presence of naturally occurring radioactive isotopes.
“The E.P.A. is very interested in ensuring that we get data on radioactivity,” Ms. Jackson said, responding to questions from Representative Maurice Hinchey, Democrat
of New York. “I do believe additional information is due the public as a result of that series.”
Mr. Hinchey further voiced concerns, also aired in the latest article in the series, that warnings from federal scientists about the safety of the drilling technique, known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have been muffled by political considerations.
“What we see here are deliberate attempts to shield from the public additional concerns expressed by E.P.A. scientists,” he said.
Ms. Jackson said that she would investigate the reported stifling of agency scientists’ views, which she contended were “really located in Philadelphia.”
“I intend to go tomorrow to our
office in Pennsylvania to have those discussions,” she said.
Meanwhile, at a hearing of the House Committee on Natural Resources, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said his department was conducting its own review of the reports that radioactive material from drilling wastewater was ending up in rivers and streams.
Mr. Salazar added that his agency was weighing new regulations requiring drillers to disclose the chemicals that they use in fracking, which involves the high-pressure injection of water and chemicals underground to free up previously inaccessible gas.
“We’re going to have a huge backlash from the American public if we continue to inject chemicals and fluids into ground without people knowing what it is that’s being injected,” Reuters quoted Mr. Salazar as telling reporters after the hearing.
In other developments on Thursday, two House Democrats sent a letter to the E.P.A. requesting information on the scope of a major national study by the agency on the safety of fracking. The letter, from Representatives Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts and Rush Holt of New Jersey, specifically asked whether the agency had excluded plans to study radioactivity in drilling waste.
“When a technology involves potential contamination of drinking water in American homes, not completing the assignment is not an option,” Mr. Markey said in a statement.
In her testimony on Thursday, Ms. Jackson denied that the agency had excluded radioactivity from the study, however.
“We are looking at radionuclides,” she said.