Northwest Arkansas Morning News reports the the State Oil and Gas Commission has received six complaints of fouled water wells in the area of natural gas drilling in the Fayetteville shale play, the commission's director told a legislative panel.

Larry Bengal told the Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee of the Arkansas Legislative Council the six wells possibly could have been affected by nearby drilling, but a connection was impossible to prove.

Bengal was responding to questions from Rep. Tracy Pennartz, D-Fort Smith, who asked why some people in the Fayetteville Shale drilling area in north-central Arkansas have reported drawing murky or bad-smelling water from their private wells despite having had no problems with the wells in the past.

"Do you have any conjecture about what would cause that, since the only external event that changed was the activity by the oil and gas companies?" Pennartz asks.

Bengal says tests of the well water have detected no drilling fluids, but vibrations from drilling may have increased the amount of sediment in the water.

"It's a physical disruption, if it's that. It's not intrusion of the well bore fluids," he says.