Amid soaring concerns about the health and environmental impacts of the U.S. fracking boom, federal regulators are failing to inspect thousands of oil and gas wells they have deemed high-risk, according to the government’s own report released Monday.
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According to the Government Accountability Office, the Bureau of Land Management—an arm of the Interior Department—did not inspect 2,100 of the 3,702 “high-priority” wells drilled between 2009 and 2012, even though such wells are mandated for inspection according to the bureau’s own rules.
Frank Rusco, who oversaw the investigation as Director of Natural Resources and Environment for the GAO, told Common Dreams that such wells are deemed high-priority because “there is the need to protect usable water, or high-pressure zones—zones that contain hydrogen sulfate which could pose a safety hazard if it were to be released.”
“This report shows a clear lack of accountability about what’s happening on public and tribal lands,” Jane Kleeb of environmental group Bold Nebraska told Common Dreams. “We have countless families that describe the pollution happening on their land. What pollution is happening that we don’t know about?”
Adding to this lack of oversight, according to Rusco, the BLM’s own process for identifying high-risk wells is “flawed” because designations are made locally by engineers who make inconsistent judgements across locations.
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