In the wake of the BP oil spill, the EPA is taking a closer look at the drilling industry, not only limited to oil but natural gas too.

Closer scrutiny of the oil industry isn’t the only thing to come of the BP spill. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is launching a study of natural gas drilling practices as well. If the drilling industry isn’t responsible enough to regulate themselves on oil – cutting corners to inflate profits – it stands to reason they could be doing the same with natural gas. Though complete conversion to renewable energy sources like solar and wind is ideal, cleaning up the fossil fuel industry is a welcome change too.

The main source of concern regarding natural gas drilling is the fracturing or “fracking” process used to extract the gas.

In its comprehensive coverage of this story, The Huffington Post explains the fracking process like this:

“Water mixed with chemicals and sand is injected at high pressure to fracture shale, the sand holding fractures open so gas can flow up the well.

“Each frack job uses an average of 4 million gallons of water, delivered to a well site by hundreds of tanker trucks. Some of the “produced” wastewater remains in the well – estimates range from 20 percent to 90 percent. What comes back up the well – briny, chemical-laden and possibly radioactive from exposure to naturally existing radon underground – is usually stored in open pits until it’s trucked to treatment plants or underground injection wells.”

Just 6 years ago, the EPA conducted a study of the natural gas industry. The agency reported that fracking posed no safety threat to underground water reserves. In response, Congress ruled federal regulation of the natural gas drilling industry was unnecessary. However, the EPA report has been criticized as scientifically flawed, and the EPA of allowing politics to taint its decision.

The timing of this closer scrutiny of the fracking process is coming at a pivotal point. Natural gas companies are flocking to the East Coat’s Marcellus Shale Region where natural gas is in such abundance that experts say it could power the East Coast for the next 50 years.

Of course, the drilling industry says fracking is a perfectly safe process. But in wake of the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history, the drilling industry has lost its credibility, and rightly so.

Meredith Simonds Natural Gas BP, drilling, Environmental Protrection Agency, EPA, fracking, fracturing, Natural Gas, oil spill