Oil firm plans to halt water delivery to Pavillion-area rancher

A Pavillion-area resident says he's been put on notice by EnCana Oil & Gas USA that it will cease delivering drinking water to his home on Monday. Louis Meeks, and several of his neighbors, for years have suspected that their drinking water wells might be contaminated from deep natural-gas wells interspersed throughout the rural ranching and farming community in Fremont County. EnCana contends that after multiple rounds of testing and several years of analysis, there's been no evidence that the residential water wells pose a health risk or that its oil and gas activities are to blame for any contamination. In fact, after bringing a lawsuit against EnCana, Meeks entered into a mediation agreement in which EnCana would deliver drinking water to his home. EnCana spokesman Randy Teeuwen said the agreement also stipulated that EnCana could stop providing drinking water on Sept. 15, 2009. Meanwhile, the drinking water concern in Pavillion has attracted national attention in a movement to restrict the oil and gas industry's practice of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing is the process of pumping fluids - sometimes oil and diesel - under extremely high pressure in order to crack gas-bearing rock deep below the surface. "Fracking" and other advanced drilling and well-stimulation technologies are credited for boosting the nation's technically recoverable natural gas reserve by more than 35 percent in just two years. But others see it as a threat to water resources, and particularly a threat to human health in areas where there are drinking water wells. In fact, legislation has been introduced in Congress to bring hydraulic fracturing under the federal authority of the Clean Drinking Water Act...BillingsGazette