Fracking destroying adjacent water wells

[boutons_deux]

Scientific Study Links Flammable Drinking Water to Fracking

http://www.propublica.org/article/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-to-fracking

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well, well, well, so to speak. Now we know why the dubya/dickhead Repug reigh exempted fracking from Clean Water Act regs, and why they blocked studies.

[TeyshaBlue]

It's reich, knucklehead. What studies were blocked, btw?

[boutons_deux]

reich?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fracking-for-natural-gas-pollutes-water-wells

dubya's MMS, etc blocked all financing of fracking studies, so, eg people here, could say "no study has ever shown fracking pollutes".

[TeyshaBlue]

You do realize that if you actually read your links, you'd see that there is no blocked financing of fracking studies whatsoever. Also, fracking does not escape regulation at all by the EPA nor the state agencies.

This link was embedded in your link:

http://www.dec.ny.gov/energy/46445.html

[TeyshaBlue]

At the same time, the researchers found no evidence that either the chemicals in fracking fluids or the natural contamination in deep waters were polluting relatively shallow water wells in the vicinity of the deep natural gas wells. That suggests that leaking wells are likely the source of such methane contamination, rather than any migration upward from the deep. "It's easier to envision a gas well casing that's leaking, especially with the high pressures, than it is to envision the mass movement of gas or liquids 5,000 feet upwards," Jackson notes. "I don't know that it's impossible but I think it's unlikely."

[TeyshaBlue]

I'd say the Gas well operators should be fined for not running bond logs on their wells as it appears the casings might be the problem here.

[Nbadan]

None the less there have been numerous instances of proprietary fracking fluids accidentally leaking into nearby water sources, rivers, and lakes, threatening downstream users...

Many states have failed to regulate fracking fluid and thanks to the Bush Admistration...


fracking fluid is exempted from the Safe Drinking Water Act, which requires a federal permit for injecting substances underground. Instead, states set their own regulations, and many regulate fracking fluid just as they would briny water that sometimes comes out of oil and gas wells, either treating it for reuse or surface disposal, or re-injecting it. Most states have well construction requirements to protect fresh-water aquifers, but few have regulations specific to fracking fluid.

HNC (http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/fracking-fluid-spill-raises-concerns-over-regulation)

If there is a problem at the state level, that is where the FED has to step in....

[RandomGuy]

None the less there have been numerous instances of proprietary fracking fluids accidentally leaking into nearby water sources, rivers, and lakes, threatening downstream users...

Many states have failed to regulate fracking fluid and thanks to the Bush Admistration...



HNC (http://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/fracking-fluid-spill-raises-concerns-over-regulation)

If there is a problem at the state level, that is where the FED has to step in....

The study in the OP rather specifically didn't show any of that fluid leaking into the water.

It did show methane in high concentrations, and in sufficient levels to be quite dangerous on several levels.

Not quite hugely damning for the industry, but then not exactly an exoneration either.

The study is very preliminary, but does seem to show indications of something worth gathering more data on, to develop a better understanding.

[boutons_deux]

"Not quite hugely damning for the industry"

of course it's damning. Highest concentrations of methane clustered around fracking wells. That's not a freak accident, it's a correlation that strongly indicates causality.

[boutons_deux]

Gas Drilling Companies Hold Data Needed by Researchers to Assess Risk to Water Quality

For years the natural gas drilling industry has decried the lack of data that could prove—or disprove—that drilling can cause drinking water contamination. Only baseline data, they said, could show without a doubt that water was clean before drilling began.

The absence of baseline data was one of the most serious criticisms leveled at a group of Duke researchers last week when they published the first peer-reviewed study linking drilling to methane contamination in water supplies.

That study—which found that methane concentrations in drinking water increased dramatically with proximity to gas wells—contained “no baseline information whatsoever,” wrote Chris Tucker, a spokesman for the industry group Energy in Depth, in a statement debunking the study.

Now it turns out that some of that data does exist. It just wasn’t available to the Duke researchers, or to the public.

Ever since high-profile water contamination cases were linked to drilling in Dimock, Pa. in late 2008, drilling companies themselves have been diligently collecting water samples from private wells before they drill, according to several industry consultants who have been working with the data. While Pennsylvania regulations now suggest pre-testing water wells within 1,000 feet of a planned gas well, companies including Chesapeake Energy, Shell and Atlas have been compiling samples from a much larger radius – up to 4,000 feet from every well. The result is one of the largest collections of pre-drilling water samples in the country.

“The industry is sitting on hundreds of thousands of pre and post drilling data sets,” said Robert Jackson, one of the Duke scientists who authored the study, published May 9 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Jackson relied on 68 samples for his study. “I asked them for the data and they wouldn’t share it.”

http://www.propublica.org/article/gas-drilling-companies-have-the-water-quality-methane-risk-data