Keith Srakocic/Associated PressHydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in 2002 in Claysville, Pa., at a Range Resources drilling site in the Marcellus Shale, a formation rich in natural gas. Pennsylvania Report Left Out Data on Poisons in Water Near Gas Site By JON HURDLE Published: November 2, 2012 PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania officials reported incomplete test results that omitted data on some toxic metals that were found in drinking water taken from a private well near a natural gas drilling site, according to legal documents released this week. The documents were part of a lawsuit claiming that natural gas extraction through a method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and storage of the resulting wastewater at a site in southwestern Pennsylvania has contaminated drinking water and sickened seven plaintiffs who live nearby. In a deposition, a scientist for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection testified that her laboratory tested for a range of metals but reported results for only some of them because the department’s oil and gas division had not requested results from the full range of tests. The scientist, Taru Upadhyay, the technical director of the department’s Bureau of Laboratories, said the metals found in the water sample but not reported to either the oil and gas division or to the homeowner who requested the tests, included copper, nickel, zinc and titanium, all of which may damage the health of people exposed to them, according to the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Ms. Upadhyay said that the bureau did not arbitrarily decide to withhold those results. “It was not requested by our client for that particular test, so we did — it is not on our final report,” she said in a deposition on Sept. 26. Another state environmental official, John Carson, a water quality specialist, testified in a separate deposition that he had received no training in what metals are found in the fluid used in fracking. Critics say that fracking contaminates public water supplies. The defendants include Range Resources, a leading developer of natural gas in Pennsylvania, and 16 other companies serving the gas industry. Kendra Smith, a lawyer for Loren Kiskadden, whose water was tested by the Environmental Protection Department, contended that the department purposely avoided reporting the full results of its tests of Mr. Kiskadden’s water in June 2011 and January 2012, after using a method established by the federal Environmental Protection Agency known as 200.7. The method tests for 24 metals, only eight of which were reported, Ms. Smith said. “Testimony of Ms. Taru Upadhyay was quite alarming,” Ms. Smith wrote Thursday in a letter to Michael Krancer, the state environmental secretary. “She revealed what can only be characterized as a deliberate procedure” by the oil and gas division and the Bureau of Laboratories “to withhold critical water testing results.” Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/03/us/pennsylvania-omitted-poison-data-in-water-report.html?emc=tnt&tntemail1=y