Source: http://www.texaslawyer.com, January 11,2 016
By: Miriam Rozen
The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board produced this month a draft of proposed revisions to a 2015-issued report, and in it echoed Texas anti-fracking plaintiffs’ concerns about alleged water contamination.
Specifically, the EPA’s advisory board draft review proposed that the federal agency revisit the contamination question since it previously concluded in a 2015 report that hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has had no “widespread, systemic impacts” to drinking water.
In the draft review released Jan. 7, the EPA advisory board, which has 30 members who are academics and industry representatives, recommended that the agency revise that 2015 report and consider the by-products of fracking as a possible water supply contaminant. The advisory board’s draft review also recommended that EPA create industry guidelines for best-management practices to help the public determine ways to minimize fracking’s impact on drinking water.
Joe Sibley, a Houston lawyer, welcomed the advisory board’s news. A partner in Houston’s Camara & Sibley, Sibley represents Steven Lipsky, who sued Range Resources, alleging that the companies’ drilling activity in 2009 contaminated his family’s drinking water on their property in Weatherford, Texas.
In response to that suit, Range Resources and its subsidiary filed a counterclaim against Lipsky for allegedly defaming the company. Both sides have denied each other’s allegations.
His client’s “public duty to inform the appropriate agencies about a public health hazard” trumped any litigation strategy to hold back information, Sibley said. Therefore, he supported Lipsky’s decision to advocate for revisions of the 2015 EPA report and provide data developed for the lawsuit about allegations of water contamination to the advisory board.
Sibley welcomes the EPA’s advisory board as a new forum to present his client’s concerns about water contamination, he said, largely because he deems the Texas Railroad Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry,”worthless.”
Scott Segal disagreed. A partner in the Washington, D.C. office of Bracewell & Giuliani, whose firm has lobbied for Range Resources, Segal believes the state’s Railroad Commission has correctly addressed fracking issues. He also believes that plaintiffs’ pursuit of getting their litigation-developed information used by the scientists who are reviewing the EPA’s report discredits their cause.
“I think that it actually weakens their arguments. It makes it appear they have a litigation motive,” Segal said.
He agreed with the 2015 EPA report’s conclusion that no widespread evidence of contamination exists. About what plaintiffs such as Lipsky has to offer, Segal said: “We don’t want that to move the EPA off course.”