As environmental concerns threaten to derail natural gas drilling projects across the country, the energy industry has developed innovative ways to make it easier to exploit the nation’s reserves without polluting air and drinking water.

Energy companies have figured out how to drill wells with fewer toxic chemicals, enclose wastewater so it can’t contaminate streams and groundwater, and sharply curb emissions from everything from truck traffic to leaky gas well valves. Some of their techniques also make good business sense because they boost productivity and ultimately save the industry money — $10,000 per well in some cases.

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Pennsylvania residents whose streams and fields have been damaged by toxic spills and whose drinking water has allegedly been contaminated by drilling for natural gas are suing the Houston-based energy company that drilled the wells. A worker at the company is among the 15 families bringing suit.

The civil case, filed Thursday in U.S District Court in Scranton, Pa., seeks to stop future drilling in the Marcellus Shale by Cabot Oil and Gas near the town of Dimock. It also seeks to set up a trust fund to cover medical treatment for residents who say they have been sickened by pollutants. Health problems listed in the complaint include neurological and gastrointestinal illnesses; the complaint also alleges that at least one person’s blood tests show toxic levels of the same metals found in the contaminated water.

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Five years ago the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency assured the nation that the technology credited with opening vast new natural gas supplies was safe. Now Congress has ordered the agency to take another look.

As part of the $32 billion Interior and Environment Appropriations Bill recently signed by President Obama, lawmakers asked the EPA to re-visit hydraulic fracturing, the process where copious amounts of water and sand mixed with toxic chemical additives are furiously pumped underground to break up gas-bearing rock thousands of feet below.

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Safe drinking water from thin air? That’s the claim of San Luis Obispo, California, based Atmospheric Water Systems (AWS), which offers a product line of air-filtering water systems under the brand Dewpointe. Founded more than a year and a half ago by Co-owner Stephen Krauss, Dewpointe systems takes a different approach to creating safe drinking water. Rather than filtering the water that comes through a pipe, Dewpointe filters the moisture out of the air to create drinking water. There are no water pipes attached to the machine. The rectangular device simply plugs into a wall.

I caught up with Mr. Krauss on the second day of this year’s West Coast Green event held at Fort Mason in San Francisco, California, and found out more about the Dewpointe system.

How does it work? Magic?

No, similar to a dehumidifier, Dewpointe pulls moisture out of the air; but unlike a dehumidifier, the goal of this device is to make that moisture drinkable. A series of filters take out 99.99% of the impurities and create clean drinking water. Impressive as this may sound, it also means that there must be moisture in the air for Dewpointe to operate effectively. Hence, all tropical or even moderate humidity environments in the United States such as coastal states, the south and mid-west work well. In desert environments or low moisture areas such as the south-western US, the Dewpointe will struggle.

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For the first time, scientists have discovered chemicals used in a controversial natural gas drilling technique in water wells near the gas sites.

Scientists for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), testing wells near a major gas drilling area in Wyoming, have found traces of drilling chemicals in three wells, and other contaminants — including oil, gas, and heavy metals — in 11 of 39 wells recently tested, according to the Web site Pro Publica.

The chemicals are used in a process called hydraulic fracturing, in which drilling fluids and sand are injected under high pressure to break up rock and release gas.

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