You can read the entire article at Reuters here.
Excerpt:
By Laura Zuckerman
SALMON, Idaho, March 26 (Reuters) – Environmental groups are asking a state court to force Wyoming to provide a more complete list of chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, a drilling technique vital to natural gas and oil production in the state.
Wyoming in 2010 became the first state to require disclosure of chemicals that energy companies inject – along with sand and water – deep underground to free gas or oil from rock. But the state exempted products and chemicals that qualified as confidential commercial information, or trade secrets.
The Wyoming Outdoor Council and others contend in a legal petition in state court that the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission has illegally allowed energy drillers to claim exemptions where they were not warranted.
The groups claim such secrecy is impeding efforts to protect public health and water quality.
“There are 150 chemicals in Wyoming that these companies have asked to be protected under trade secret status,” said Steve Jones, watershed program protection attorney for the Wyoming Outdoor Council.
“Since these chemicals pose a potential threat to ground water and to people’s heath, we need to know what they are.”
Read the entire article here.
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