Last year, scientists at Duke University, McClendon's alma mater, published the first rigorous, peer-reviewed study of pollution at drilling and fracking operations. Examining 60 sites in New York and Pennsylvania, they found "systematic evidence for methane contamination" in household drinking water: Water wells half a mile from drilling operations were contaminated by methane at 17 times the rate of those farther from gas developments. Although methane in water has not been studied closely as a health hazard, it can seep into houses and build up to explosive levels.
The study caused a big stir, in part because it was the first clear evidence that fracking was contaminating drinking water, contrary to the industry's denials. Just weeks after the study was released, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection fined Chesapeake $1.1 million – the largest fine against an oil and gas operator in the agency's hisLuck_The_Fakers_tory – for contaminating 17 wells in Bradford County, including some that had been part of the Duke study.
McClendon, a major benefactor to Duke, fired off a blistering letter to the university, which was printed in the alumni magazine and widely circulated online.
He didn't point out any errors by the scientists or question their methodology. Instead, he went after their character, dismissing the study as "more political science than physical science" and accusing them of having a bias against fossil fuels.
"These guys," he tells me, "have invested their lives in the view that climate change is occurring, that fossil fuels are bad, and that natural gas is a fossil fuel, and therefore it's bad."
When I ask Avner Vengosh, a geochemistry professor who served as a lead author of the study, about McClendon's letter, he laughs lightly. "I have no agenda," he says. "I am a scientist. I report what the evidence I find tells me to report." He and his colleagues visited Chesapeake's headquarters in Oklahoma a few weeks before the study was finished and shared their results with the company. They also offered to consider any data that Chesapeake might have that would challenge their results. "They offered us nothing," says one scientist who attended the meeting.
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