<img class="styles__noscript__2rw2y" src="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-73080873_2.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0" srcset="https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-73080873_2.jpg?v=at&w=485&h=273&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 400w, https://dsx.weather.com//util/image/w/gettyimages-73080873_2.jpg?v=ap&w=980&h=551&api=7db9fe61-7414-47b5-9871-e17d87b8b6a0 800w" > In a new study, Stanford researchers found a clear link between fracking and groundwater quality in a Wyoming community. (Photo Illustration by Sean Gallup/Getty Images) (Photo Illustration by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Scientists have found that fracking has had a "clear impact" to drinking water in Pavillion, Wyoming, according to a study published this week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology .

In a report that Stanford researchers were calling a "wake-up call," they determined that natural gas extraction activities in the town, which included injecting chemicals such as benzene and xylene into the earth, had influenced the quality of the ground water.

"Around 2008, residents began reporting odors and other problems with their water," co-author Rob Jackson told weather.com in an email. "Their complaints led EPA to open an investigation that continued for several years."

The EPA began investigating links to contamination in 2011 but later backed down on issuing a finalized report after pressure from natural gas groups and state representatives. The Stanford team stepped in to complete the report.

"At Pavillion, you combine a legacy of unlined waste pits with recent instances of poor well integrity, insufficient cement, and surface casings that weren't deep to isolate the oil and gas wells from ground water," Jackson explained. "You also had acid treatments and fracking within a thousand feet of the surface, and drinking water wells as deep as 750 feet. That combination is trouble."

(MORE: Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale: Big Oil and Bad Air on the Texas Prairie)

Steve Horn, a research fellow at DeSmogBlog, who has written extensively about the effects of natural gas extraction on aquifers, told weather.com in an email that lackluster government regulation put the public at risk.

"Lax standards in Wyoming, as the authors conclude in this new Stanford study, definitely play a large role here," Horn said.

Sandra Steingraber, scholar in residence in the Department of Environmental Studies and Science at Ithaca College, also felt that the findings were further confirmation that the natural gas extraction process was inherently dangerous for drinking water.

"The Stanford study demonstrates that, in Pavillion, Wyoming, fracking operations have contaminated groundwater aquifers and, more specifically, drinking water wells," Steingraber said in an email to weather.com. "The underlying geology in this whole region causes groundwater to rise toward the surface. Those same forces also have the potential to push fracking fluids upwards into drinking water wells. For that reason alone, it’s unlikely that Pavilion is an isolated, exceptional situation."

"Allowing this area to be fracked in the first place is what went wrong," she concluded.

Pavillion has been one of the highest profile battlegrounds in the controversy over fracking. A local rancher, who claimed fracking had contaminated drinking water near his farm, appeared in the 2010 film Gasland , an influential documentary about the natural gas industry's environmental impact in the United States.

"In terms of the growing body of evidence, this is significant," Josh Fox, the director of Gasland , told weather.com in a phone interview. "They've been fighting and battling for the truth since 2008."

Previous to the Stanford study, Wyoming's Department of Environmental Quality concluded that it was "unlikely" that hydraulic fracturing fluids had contaminated drinking water in Pavillion.

Encana, a natural gas company with wells located in the town where the research was conducted, disagreed with the Stanford study. A spokesman told weather.com that they differed with the researcher's interpretation of the data.

"After numerous rounds of testing by both the State of Wyoming and EPA, there is no evidence that the water quality in domestic wells in the Pavillion Field has changed as a result of oil and gas operations," Doug Hock, a spokesman for Encana, said. "No oil and gas constituents were found to exceed drinking water standards in any samples taken."

The Stanford researchers hoped their report would spur further regulations of natural gas drilling and inspire additional scientific inquiry into the effects.

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