EPA Buries Its Own Good News About Fracking
View Enlarged ImageWant to see a perfect example of spin as a Washington art form? Read the results of the federal government's most in-depth investigation ever of fracking. As Institute for Energy Research president Thomas Pyle pointed out, "It only took four years and 1,000 pages, but the EPA finally confirmed what we already knew hydraulic fracturing is safe, and states have been effectively regulating the process."Americans love good news, but President Obama's Environmental Protection Agency couldn't treat it as such. The report's "Major Findings" didn't celebrate that your well water is safe. It instead leads with scaremongering about fracking's "above- and below-ground mechanisms" and their "potential to impact drinking water resources," including "spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids ... and discharge of wastewater."Only after this does the EPA admit: "We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States."But, refusing to accept the good news, the EPA then ponders possible "limiting factors" in the investigation, like "insufficient pre- and post-fracturing data on the quality of drinking water resources . .. and the inaccessibility of some information on hydraulic fracturing activities and potential impacts."Read More At Investor's Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital-hill/060415-755833-epa-report-downplays-results-of-its-own-fracking-study.htm#ixzz3cCG2HeNE Follow us: @IBDinvestors on Twitter | InvestorsBusinessDaily on Facebook
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There is a huge difference from the report's statement:
and your blanket statement that fracking is safe. Here is an interesting article from Reuter's. This article states that states that have regulated fracking activities have managed to prevent ground water contamination, but that risks are still involved in the treatment of the waste water from fracking activities.
As a drinking water professional with 35 years experience, I am heartened to know that no major disasters have occurred yet. However, localized incidences of contamination are noted in the EPA report, and personal experience with oil and gas exploration make me very cautious about going so far as to say it is safe. It is "safer", if the wells are cased and cemented in carefully, and if the formations tapped are, indeed, deep wells. We have yet to see what fracking does with the migration of fluids between formation layers, via lineaments or fractures. That may take a bit longer to show up.
What was it that an oil drilling crew told me? They were speaking about the mud used. "That's perfectly safe. Environmentally friendly. Nothing toxic in it at all. But don't step in it-- it'll eat the boots right off your feet."
Please forgive me if I seem to be impertinent, as I'm not trying to be. However, there are known geologic risks of fracking along a fault, fracking in formations with lineaments, and other geologic risks that are not really being taken into account in the long term.
While I certainly agree that there are existing methods to minimize the risk, the risk is still there. IF the oil and gas exploration company uses these methods, then all can be good. However, I seem to remember the Deep Horizon oil spill that occurred because the company ignored the basics of safety, in the pursuit of the almighty dollar. In other words, the energy companies haven't a great history when it comes to spending the money required to handle things safely.
While we all benefit from lower energy costs, and yay about that, we also need drinking water-- one can't drink gasoline or natural gas. We must all be attune to the safety of our water supply. Perhaps the exceptional oversight given to fracking by the environmental partners has helped to keep our drinking water safer, and make the energy companies more careful about what they do.
Another example of poorly managed energy companies, is the fact that the saline/fresh water interface, is, in many places in KY, as shallow as 60' below groun surface-- the effects of using connate water, (brine or ancient sea water), as water flooding technology in the 70s and 80s. The connate water migrated up from the formation into poorly sealed wells-- they used to abandon wells with a pine tree stuffed into the surface casing. Records of existing well borings are not exact, nor accurate. Since the surface terrain is very difficult to traverse, (here in KY), it is virtually impossible to find all the old abandoned wells, and no records exist as to their depth.
The claim that fracking has been occurring since the 1970s is true, but the original fracking included dynamite dropped into a vertical well, not into directional-drilled wells. The practice has evolved over the years. The areas covered by many of these wells are at least 1 mile in diameter, up to 2 miles in diameter. Anyone that has performed lineament analysis is aware that there are at least one lineament in any square mile section.
Maybe you have to be a geologist to understand what I'm trying to say...
Thanks, very much.
Oil and gas geologists don't want to hear about lineaments, but, in discounting them, they cannot explain why one well is a good producer, and one is not-- both in the same formation. They have also learned to select drilling sites that aren't perfectly flat-- or are down in a little scooped out place. They've found that if you drill in the low spots, you get more oil/gas. The answer: they are drilling on the confluence of a couple of lineaments. Funny how that works.
Widespread and systemic are words that mean little when there ARE spills that do tons of damage, andover very long periods of time. These impacts are very real and devestate areas.
Worst Fracking Wastewater Spill in North Dakota Leaks 3 Million Gallons Into Missouri River
Over 865,200 Gallons of Fracked Oil Spill in ND, Public In Dark For Days Due to Government Shutdown
Fracking Well Blowout Causes Oil And Chemical Wastewater Spill In North Dakota
Fracking Wastewater Is Ravaging North Dakota Farms
'Saltwater' From North Dakota Fracking Spill Is Not What's Found in the Ocean
North Dakota tribe hit with another brine spill
There are many, many more examples.
I understand why we need to be self reliant. I also understand that commiting ecological suicide while attempting that, isn't a viable option. We could and should do better.
Sounds good to me!
That is why I think yay that nothing has happened yet, and credit the environmental watch dogs with helping to keep an eye on it. The industry needs to be watched, carefully, as a whole.
Yep! For sure!
Right on.
Next you'll be trying to say they don't use ground water, the type for drinking, in the drought stricken areas of California and Texas for fracking.