A different focus
The health agency’s report last year departed from the conclusions of other organizations. The EPA declared in 2012 that the water in Dimock was safe to drink or could be treated to safe levels and closed its highprofile investigation.
Elements that concerned the federal health agency — like arsenic, manganese, sodium, iron and methane — occur naturally in the environment or could be associated with nearby natural gas well activities.
Its first analysis was conservative and assumed that residents were ingesting the maximum detected concentration of the chemicals found in the well water. It also took into account sensitive populations, like bottlefed infants or those on a lowsodium diet.
A Pennsylvania DEP spokesman said on Wednesday that state regulators’ recent sampling and company test results do not show levels of contaminants associated with oil and gas activities in the Dimock water that could pose health or safety risks, although other contaminants unrelated to drilling could be in the water. DEP’s own investigation is ongoing because it has not determined that methane in water supplies has returned to levels that represent conditions in the groundwater before drilling began.
State regulators plan, at an unknown future date, to resample the 18 private wells named in a 2010 settlement and compliance order with Cabot Oil and Gas Corp., the Texas-based company DEP found responsible for contaminating the water with methane and metals, spokesmanNeil Shader said.
Cabot has consistently said that any contamination
For some residents here, flammable gas in water wells has been an ongoing plague that carries other worries with it.
The methane-charged water spurts so powerfully from the faucets in Erik and Susan Roos’s cozy purple farmhouse that it adds a tiresome slapstick quality to routine daily chores, spraying Mrs. Roos in the face in the morning when she first turns on the tap or knocking a plate out of Mr. Roos’s hand when he tries to rinse it in the sink.
“You’d think you’d get used to it,” he said.
They get regular sampling — Cabot contractors test their water twice a month for methane — but they were pleased to be getting a more comprehensive analysis after the Agency for Toxic Substances’ water sampling team packed up vans and pulled away on Wednesday.
“Ideally,” Mr. Roos said, “they will come back and say the water is better than it’s ever been, but —” he waved his hands to indicate that he has learned not to count on the ideal.
Between Monday and Friday, agency teams collected samples at 25 homes. First, they pulled water from kitchen taps to assess the water that people might cook with and drink, then they purged wells through outdoor spigots and bottled up water that reflects the groundwater quality.
The first test is important because people in Dimock who do not trust their raw well water have turned to a range of alternatives on a scale from probably safe to startling: They rely on elaborate treatment systems, accept bulk water deliveries arranged by the gas company, truck in water from a public spring in a town about 6 miles north or pump water from streams and ponds into holding tanks connected to their plumbing.
Health officials worry about the surface-fed creek and pond water because it carries a high risk of bacterial contamination from nearby farm animals.
“We’re concerned that people are choosing what may taste better but they have nothing to tell them what’s in it,” Mr. Helverson said, “versus water that’s been tested and they know what’s in it and potentially have a treatment for that.”
‘We’re here to help’
Contractors also tested for radon in water and indoor air, because residents and the agency wanted to explore whether the gas, which can be associated with the Marcellus Shale, might be elevated in Dimock homes.
Mr. Helverson could not estimate when the final analysis of the samples will be released, but he said agency staff members will call residents if they find anything of acute concern in the first draft of data.
Otherwise, residents will receive the full sampling results once they are validated. Apublic report will follow.
The Agency for Toxic Substances has investigated other sites in Pennsylvania after residents raised concerns about the effects of natural gas development on air, water and their health.
It sampled for air pollution emissions around a natural gas compressor station in Washington County in 2012 and evaluated the health effects of fine particles in the air around a compressor station in Susquehanna County in 2015. It also evaluated air and water samples around a 13.5 million-gallon holding pond for fracking wastewater in Washington County in 2015 and private water wells near a large wastewater release from a Bradford County gas well in 2011.
But few places have received the attention, or notoriety, of this pretty piece of country in a region known as the Endless Mountains.
Activists trailed the water sampling teams as they traveled from house to house last week.
By Wednesday, a local activist’s car had broken down twice and the Agency for Toxic Substances’ teams jump-started her car.
“Because we’re here to help and these are back country roads and you can get easily stranded,” Mr. Helverson said.
At Ray Kemble’s house, the parade of anti-fracking signs continues down the front walk through the front door and onto the living room walls, where he displays two photos of the time Yoko Ono, Sean Lennon and actress Susan Sarandon arrived in a Mercedes bus at his auto shop and examined a gallon jug of his yellowed water.
With this round of water sampling, he said he hopes for “the truth,” but he isn’t expecting it. The water ran clear and had no foul odor when samplers collected it on Monday, a circumstance he believes is tied to an unusual amount of recent rain.
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to get bull back,” Mr. Kemble, 62, said on Wednesday, addingan expletive to the “bull.”