"Wyoming regulators downplayed health concerns, glossed over ambiguities and made unsubstantiated claims about the source of contamination in their study of the polluted drinking water east of Pavillion, a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency review shows.

Those findings, delivered in comments to the state earlier this month, raised questions over state officials' contention that natural gas operations are not responsible for pollution found in some water wells outside this central Wyoming community of roughly 230 people.

A draft study released by the state Department of Environmental Quality in December concluded hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, likely played little role in polluting water wells in the Pavillion area. It linked contamination in the those wells to naturally occurring pollutants. Methane buildup in landowners' water was more likely a product of natural seepage from shallow geologic formations than gas production, the state concluded."

Benjamin Storrow reports for the Billings Gazette March 27, 2016. [2]