Water testing by a private environmental engineering company has discovered toxic chemicals in wells in a township in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania.
Victoria Switzer, a resident of the northeastern Pennsylvania township of Dimock, exposed the results of the water tests from her well this week at an Environmental Protection Agency hearing on hydraulic fracturing in Binghamton, New York.
Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is a contentious process used to extract natural gas from deep underground. Critics say chemicals used in the procedure can be injected into groundwater. Farnham & Associates established that ethylene glycol, propylene glycol and toluene were present in her water, Switzer said.
The tests, which were established by three certified laboratories, found chemicals in the mass of samples taken from water wells in Dimock, said Daniel Farnham, president of Farnham & Associates, based in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
Despite his latest findings, however, Farnham said he cannot reach any conclusions about the source of the chemical compounds originate in the drinking water wells.
