Wyoming town fears fracking poisoned their water

On the mountainous Wind River Indian Reservation in western Wyoming, cattle grazing in a valley share space with more than a hundred gas wells. Pumps puff and click, like alarm clocks for long-time farmers and ranchers who wait for their Thursday deliveries from the Big Horn water truck. The driver stacks up pyramids of five-gallon bottles at 19 stops. Encana Corporation, an energy company, provides the water. It's the only way disabled veteran Louis Meeks can stay on the land he bought back in the 1970's, when his water wells pumped sweet life into the place. No more. It gives off a pungent, petroleum smell. The EPA told Meeks and other families not to drink it, and to ventilate bathrooms while showering. Meeks says Wyoming's governor recoiled when he got a whiff a few days before News 8's visit. Meeks thinks the water killed some of his chickens. He's afraid to let his granddaughter near it, or even wash her clothes in it. His neighbor, Jeff Locker, says doctors as far away as Denver have been unable diagnose his wife's strange illness. The EPA found high levels of toxic contaminants in a monitoring well just yards from Locker's own water well. He pulls out a blackened filter from his waterline. "This has been in about a week," he said. The EPA says chemicals in the monitoring wells are consistent with fracking fluids. But the study has yet to undergo peer review, and the drilling company strongly refutes the EPA's conclusions and methodology...more