Houston (Platts)--18Oct2012/1246 pm EDT/1646 GMT

The American Petroleum Institute on Thursday blasted the US Environmental Protection Agency for "sloppy" workmanship in its investigation of water contamination in Pavillion, Wyoming, and said new monitoring wells should be drilled in the region because the results from two wells the agency drilled are suspect.

"They need to start from scratch," Erik Milito, API's upstream director, said in a conference call with reporters.

Earlier this month, the EPA said data it had collected this spring from the two EPA-drilled monitoring wells, as well as several privately owned water wells, was "generally consistent" with data the US Geological Survey had collected from one of the two EPA wells.

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The EPA also stood by its assertion that all data collected to date was consistent with the findings of a draft report the agency released in December on its Pavillion study, which linked groundwater contamination in the area to hydraulic fracturing that had taken place in a nearby gas-producing field.

Milito, however, said the API's analysis of the data collected separately by USGS and EPA found that the USGS findings do not support the EPA's conclusions.

Key compounds that EPA cited in its draft report as indicators of a link to fracking "were not evident in the USGS sampling," Milito said.

"The USGS did a better job" in collecting its samples than did the EPA, he said. "USGS' findings also raise questions about the adequacy of the monitoring wells."

Unlike the EPA, which took samples from both of its deep monitoring wells, the USGS took samples from only one because the latter agency was unable to collect a representative sample from the second well, Milito said.

He blamed the EPA for what he said was faulty construction of both monitoring wells and suggested that the troublesome compounds that the agency found in samples from those wells could have been the result of cross-contamination.

"EPA procedures could have introduced contaminants," he said. "We're seeing poor and sloppy work being done."

Milito said the EPA or some other entity should drill and maintain new monitoring wells, according to accepted USGS standards.

"We need research done with proven scientific practices," he said. "We don't need to create flawed research."

A spokesperson for the EPA did not immediately return calls and emails requesting comment.

The EPA is conducting a comprehensive study of the impact of hydraulic fracturing on water quality. The agency is expected to release preliminary results in December with the final report due out in 2014.

--Jim Magill, jim_magill@platts.com
--Edited by Jason Lindquist, jason_lindquist@platts.com

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