The Powder River Basin Resource Council released a report this
week recommending that Wyoming legislators and industry leaders
implement a series of specific actions to protect what they say
are scarce and dwindling groundwater resources. In a media
release, the resource council says these resources became scarce
as a result of the boom in what they call unconventional oil and
gas development. The report states that Wyoming's groundwater
aquifers are currently being drained faster than they are being
refilled - and that more demands are being placed on aquifers
for billions of gallons of water. This water, reads the report,
is used to drill and hydraulically fracture thousands of new
horizontal oil and gas wells. Recommending actions to better
manage this groundwater, the report says, is just part of the
problem. The report says contamination of the state's
groundwater can occur when flowback water during the fracking
process and water produced from oil and gas wells enters the
aquifers. One of the authors of