130 groups signed a letter sent to President Biden and the Department of Energy (DOE) today, calling on the administration to consider the known risks and harms to clean water sources from the entire production chain of liquid natural gas (LNG) exportation. The DOE is currently updating the economic and environmental analyses used to determine if pending export authorizations of LNG to non-FTA nations are in the public interest. The letter was facilitated by the environmental organization Food & Water Watch. 

The letter states, in part: Methane gas extracted domestically that becomes LNG for export is deleterious to water through every stage of its lifecycle–from drilling and fracking, to processing, transportation, refining, and liquefaction. In addition, carbon capture and storage (CCS) added to any of these stages can result in additional water uses and harm…

“The oil and gas industry has been profiting off the exploitation of water resources for generations due to a lack of proper federal oversight. Expanded LNG exports will have significant impacts on water quality and quantity across the entire gas supply chain, from the fracking wells and pipelines to the export facilities themselves,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch. The Department of Energy can’t do a legitimate public interest evaluation of LNG without looking at the impact on our dwindling, threatened drinking water supplies.”

“This opposite of a perfect storm is a perfect drought, which is exactly what the proposed LNG export boom threatens to usher in. Methane gas extracted for LNG harms our nation’s water resources at every stage—from fracking operations to the construction of the massive export terminals on our coastlines,” said ecologist Sandra Steingraber, PhD, senior scientist at the Science and Environmental Health Network, one of the signers of the letter. “As our Department of Energy updates its economic and environmental analyses used to determine if LNG export authorizations are in the public interest, the agency must consider the consumption and contamination of America’s freshwater resources throughout the entire LNG 

lifecycle—including proposed carbon capture and storage operations.”

“In our rural areas aquifers provide drinking water, support rural economies, and are the basis of natural ecosystems,” said Peg Furshong, director of programs at CURE, another letter signatory. “We need federal oversight of these technologies with their rapid expansion and cumulative impacts so that we don’t lose our freshwater resources to neglect, overuse, and a tragedy of the commons. Federal oversight must put people over profits, critical resources over short-term gains.”

“At every part of the LNG value chain, from extraction to transport and production, methane has catastrophic impacts on both people and the climate. Expanding production of this potent greenhouse gas is counter-productive to meeting our nation’s climate goals — particularly when venting and flaring are essentially unregulated by the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas agency,” said Paige Powell, senior policy manager at Commission Shift. In addition to being a climate disaster, the export of Gulf Coast LNG is a threat to local community safety, public health, and access to safe drinking water; is clearly not in the public interest; and will only serve to further entrench environmental injustice.”