Since the United States is not a third world country, its citizens automatically assume that clean water is as American as apple pie…in a perfect world - maybe.That is -- unless you live in a small town in Texas called Bethany. For more than four years the persistent residents have been going through a bureaucratic nightmare all in the name of having clean water to drink.
Contamination from an abandoned saltwater well injection disposal site was affirmed by the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) who will pay to have a main water line installed.
Letters detailing complaints on the well site date back to 1996. It wasn't until 2003 that the EPA deemed groundwater along the road unsafe to drink after high levels of hazardous chemicals such as barium, mercury, and arsenic, showed up in various samplings. The EPA started providing bottled water at no charge in August 2005 and will continue to do so until clean water is flowing.
The residents filed a civil lawsuit against Basic Energy Services, the last user of the disposal site known as the former R.B. Mitchell lease that was shut down in early 2005. The lawsuit was settled out of court in June 2006.
Then an assessment petition was filed with the EPA, requesting the agency conduct a preliminary assessment of the groundwater contamination. A multitude of water samples taken by a number of agencies over the years from the private water wells, natural springs, and the host of monitoring wells spread across the neighborhood resulting in a laundry list of contaminants being detected.
At this point you have to wonder how much testing do they need to determine that water is too contaminated to drink?
Finally, samples were studied by labs across the country without bias. This was important because the findings determined that the private water wells only tested positive for fecal bacteria. The natural springs and monitoring wells were contaminated with metals and radioactive materials that exceeded levels considered safe for drinking water such as benzene by-products of oil and gas production.
The Railroad Commission of Texas, an oil regulatory agency, keeps saying that the water is not contaminated. The residents feel that the RC is not doing their job and needs overseeing. In the community, several families have ingested the contaminated waste water for years and have cancer. A federal lawsuit has been filed claiming the Railroad Commission violated the community's civil rights by denying clean drinking water while having full knowledge of the violations.
This waste is mostly oily saltwater used in drilling. The waste contains substances such as sludge from storage pits and tank bottoms, used glycol, amine, and hydrogen sulfide scrubber liquid. There are at least 26 acknowledged chemicals in the waste, including such known carcinogens as benzene and one category listed as - other. Oddly enough, oil and gasoline are not categorized as hazardous waste.
