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EPA Says No Evidence That Fracking Has "Widespread" Impact On Drinking Water
sycodon writes: A long-awaited EPA report on hydraulic fracturing concludes that the extraction process has "not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources." The report also cautions of potential contamination of water supplies if safeguards are not maintained. "The study was undertaken over several years and we worked very closely with industry throughout the process," Tom Burke, EPA's science advisor and deputy assistant administrator of EPA's Office of Research and Development, said on a conference call hosted by the agency.
... and we worked very closely with industry throughout the process.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
From the report:
"In its report, the EPA notes that its findings could have been limited because of an insufficient amount of data and the presence of other possible contaminates that made it impossible to conclude fracking's effects on certain areas. "
So in other words they're saying it could have been too contaminated to tell where it came from.
" we worked very closely with industry throughout the process"
In what world is that considered impartial and unbiased? I would feel much better if it read "the investigation was conducted independent of the fracking industry and represents an impartial evaluation of the contamination". Biased much?
Sure, if your disposal wells don't get too close to drinking aquifers and nobody needed the millions of gallons their pumping up to drink, there's not much effect on the water table.
But it's causing hundreds of earthquakes. Which kinda sucks.
Did I just read that right: the Obama administration just missed an opportunity to enact business-stifling, job-killing regulation? That the man who promised to heal the oceans is letting frackers get away with whatever they're doing?
Somebody's going to get fired over this. Fracking just has to be bad for the environment, because, well, big business (read: Republican leaning folks) are making money from it.
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
EPA is God when they agree with the environmentalists. Now we'll hear all about why they're wrong or why this is misleading.
before fracking was invented. The Republicans claim that was caused by fracking, but that is a typical Republican lie. At my grandparent's house in PA, they can at times light the water coming out of their faucet on fire. They've been able to do that since the late 1920s. Obviously, this was not caused by fracking, but my grandmother has been on TV several times and used as a pawn in this Republican-created scam. Fracking did not pollute that water. Fracking takes place many thousands of feet blow the deepest of wells and it was happening decades before the invention of fracking. It is not the cause.
However, since the water is already polluted, fracking should be made illegal because the water is already polluted. That is the only logical thing to do.
... we find that there was no environmental impact of cracked or otherwise blown out well casings due to fracking.
There is no way in hell that we aren't contaminating our water supplies when pushing millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the ground. Yeah they worked closely with the industry. Those golf outings can be brutal.
Then the EPA was paid off. Check Tom Burke's finances, oh wait he probably has hidden off shore accounts
They forgot one eencie teencie little word....
YET!
That, and the state and local municipalities that refuse to let fracking anywhere near their watersheds. Looking at parts of you, upstate New York!
I don't want to imagine the shitstorm if the Oil industry poisons NYC's water source!
That would need to include up to 5 times removed from the individuals involved, but I am positive we will find money changing hands from the oil industry or the Republicans to make the report turn out like this.
We should never forget that it was a Nixon creation. The Republicans created it to destroy the Earth. Nixon created it. Nixon hated anyone that isn't old and white, and he knew that global warming and pollution had a greater negative effect on the poor so he created the EPA to ensure the acceleration of global warming and the Republican-ruled corporations polluting of the planet. That is the way of their kind.
Sure are a lot of Anonymous Cowards on here. Do the shills not even bother registering anymore?
Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence...
When the water is bad though, it's a real gas.
I'll be here all week, try the veal.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
Which would you rather have, fracking, or geothermal?
There's also no evidence that EPA is not wholly owned by gross industrial polluters.
Farm water is ruined by cracking nearby.
It's not now, it's the 50 % of well lining failures over 50 years that allows the contaminants up to the surface.
They know that , they are just being clever to confuse you and satisfy the gas industry and avoid their responsibility to the electorate.
Using magic words to hide something.
Saying no widespread impact on drinking water can also mean a few cases where drinking water was severely affected.
"Republicans Against Fracking"
"Even though Fracking causes no environmental harm - it must be stopped!"
HMM.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Yeah - earthquakes that are dwarfed by the vibrations from passing trucks. Why exactly does that suck?
You are either (1) rationalizing a harmful practice in which you have a vested interest, (2) being paid to take deceptive positions on the internet, or (3) have bought the lies of persons in category 1 or 2. That doesn't necessarily make you bad--the oil companies hire *very* good people to do this, and of course as humans we are all very good at rationalizing things and somewhat bad at spotting lies.
These earthquakes are not limited in effect to the side of an interstate. An oil company should not be causing people living in their own homes to go through an earthquake every day, and certainly shouldn't be doing it unless *paying* to insure all of those people for property, casualty, or medical harm resulting from the earthquakes, not to mention partial loss of the use and enjoyment of their property and any decrease in market value.
Admittedly, most are big enough to be felt but too small to do direct and immediate damage. Still, that doesn't mean they always will be, and shaking houses is obviously not good for them and over time causes settling, cracking, etc...
> "While 90 percent of residential indoor water use is reused because it is processed by a wastewater treatment facility, water used for fracking is too polluted to be recycled for indoor use."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking_and_water_consumption
As I understand it, it's an awful lot of water.
Might be worth remembering while California cries about their drought.
This ranks among your more incoherent trolls.
"The two largest private sector sources for these EPA positions are Monsanto and Waste Management Inc. Since the creation of the EPA in 1970, at least twelve high-level employees of the agency also have one of these two companies on their resume." ref
A "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L...
Trading profit for the future.
- The Kessel run is for nerf herders. I can circumnavigate the entire Central Finite Curve in a lot less than 12 parse
Bottle water from a well near a fracking site and ship it to the EPA! They'd probably be jailed for attempting to poison someone. EPA a bunch a fracking front men for the oil/gas industry.
Its all in the wording - widespread, so there is some/significant impact on drinking water but it is not widespread - what does that even mean?
Like saying a zone having 20 times more earthquakes is just an anomaly... Um ya. It's not their back yard, why should the EPA care?
of course they would say this
> "We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [of potentially affecting water] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States," the report said.
Note that it did not say that the gahzillions of gallons of fresh water that are used for fracking could ever be recovered.
Also, what is "widespread?" A lot of fracking goes on in sparsely populated states, like Wyoming. So maybe only one million people will be poisoned. Not really widespread, right?
This is significant.
And so after sacking any scientist that did actual research, and slashing the EPA budget, and specificly exempting fracking from any laws that stop anybody else from polluting or contaminating drinking water, the EPA now releases a report based on information from the fracking companies themselves that says "most" fracking wells do not contaminate drinking water. Toxic fumes are not considered. This is mostly because the water was never tested before-hand and those toxins specific to fracking "might" have been there before they started. Does anybody think that releasing this report that has taken years to create, at the same time that States are stopping citys and counties from banning fracking is just coincidence ? http://www.usnews.com/news/bus...
This EPA report is not based on science, it is based on pharmaceutical science, where research is simply not done on things that might harm profits. The report does not reflect the facts so much as it reflects how far corruption has seeped into politics. Cancer causing Roundup in your food anybody ? , only if it makes a profit, Secret international trade deals that prevent GMO food labeling ? Copyright laws that make killing someone less of a crime than copying a movie ? Copyright laws that keep getting extended instead of reduced as it becomes easier to make and publish ? Welcome to the land of the free, where liberty is the highest priority.
.... that water is a liquid
EPA Study Says Fracking Pollutes Drinking Water
June 4, 2015
> “Despite industry’s obstruction, EPA found that fracking pollutes water in a number of ways,” said Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel. “That’s why industry didn’t cooperate. They know fracking is an inherently risky, dirty process that doesn’t bear close, independent examination.”
> The report also pointed out the declining amount of water that could be available for drinking purposes due to extended drought, saying, “The future availability of drinking water sources that are considered fresh in the U.S. will be affected by changes in climate and water use. Declines in surface water resources have already led to increased withdrawals and cumulative net depletions of ground water in some areas.”
> And, while saying it didn’t find evidence of widespread impacts on drinking water to date, the U.S. EPA report did conclude, “The colocation of hydraulic fracturing activities with drinking water resources increases the potential for these activities to affect the quality and quantity of current and future drinking water resources. While close proximity of hydraulically fractured wells to drinking water resources does not necessarily indicate that an impact has or will occur, information about the relative location of wells and water supplies is an initial step in understanding where impacts might occur.”
http://ecowatch.com/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-pollutes-drinking-water/
Same story over and over. The messenger is a liar or paid off if you disagree with the message. If you agree then you must think God himself carved the result in stone and there is no debating it.
The sad part in this world is the inflexibility of everyone who knows best and is OBVIOUSLY smarter than the other one in the argument. Nothing is ever as black and white as each side thinks.
We are all the ultimate victims because we can't debate the merits of the topic because of closed minds and personal attacks.
This is not what the Internet was supposed to do for humanity.
yeah and who's been lobbying them
Instead of industry why not work with home owners whose wells are now rancid with chemicals. All fracking needs to be banned everywhere.
"This document is a draft for review purposes only and does not constitute Agency policy"
Give it time...
Greed is the root of all evil.
The science is settled!
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
There is no inconsistency in a conservative who criticizes the EPA embracing THIS report; In doing so, the conservative is simply pointing out that even the authority so often cited by his opponent is in agreement on this. This fact can be pointed out as a fact without surrendering to the idea that the EPA is any more correct on ANYTHING than a typical kindergartener. Remember: it's the Left that holds the EPA up as an authority and cites them all the time in arguments as an "appeal to authority" (look up the tactic under "logical fallacies") and accuses anybody who disagrees with the EPA of being "anti-science"
The hypocrite is the one who embraces the authority as an authority only when he agrees with that authority. Pointing out a hypocrite is not, itself, an act of hypocrisy.
The Left embraces the EPA as an authority on all pollution discussions when it agrees with then, but rejects the EPA as an authority when it does not (as-in this case)
The Right is not embracing the EPA as an authority in either case, it is simply pointing out that the Left's chosen authority has not agreed with the Left on this one thing and the Left has suddenly decided to ignore one of its favorite "experts". Personally, if the EPA said it was daytime, I'd hang my head out the window to check, given how thoroughly political that agency has become over the decades; you'll NEVER see me cite them as an authority - but I am perfectly willing to point out the Left-leaners who seem to lose faith in one of their go-to authorities when that authority is not serving THE CAUSE. The EPA has long been a joke, but it truly jumped the shark with the classification of CO2 as a pollutant. Suddenly with THAT ruling, the EPA made it completely clear that it does not know the difference between substances that kill (often without any redeeming qualities) and an essential gas without which all life on Earth would be extinguisehd. It's now clear that the EPA is run by Idiots of sub-human intelligence, backed-up by the force of law.
From the FA: 'no evidence fracking has a "widespread" impact on drinking water'
What does "widespread" mean? Is this like bullets, where statistically they do no harm but in certain localised scenarios (e.g. entering a particular human body at speed) they cause a lot of damage?
I'm not sure what the water management strategies are like in the US, but I find it hard to conceive that communities may not be affected by the impact of fracking in their region. The article mentions the impact in "select areas" - and problems when the water supply is constrained (US never suffers droughts, do they?) - but doesn't go into details in the article. Does this mean that some communities are effectively shut off from their local water supply because of fracking? It's unclear.
I suspect the potential impact of fracking is more complex than the one-line takeaway from a report. But I'm not a geoscientist, so I'll shut up now.
I wouldn't knock anecdotes. Science is basically a set of carefully written anecdotes confirming one another.
The question becomes, what did the EPA do with the evidence?
So I don't claim to be an expert on this, but unless the videos and various accounts of residents nearby significant fracking sites are outright fabricating their stories as part of a massive conspiracy, their fucking tap water can burn seemingly indefinitely once fracking has sufficiently fucked up the local environment. That's pretty messed up. At the very least, the fracking companies should be required to provide a constant supply of clean, drinkable, non-flammable water in place of any water supply they're ruining. Further, they should compensate the homeowners for the additional risk of being surrounded by enough flammable gases that water ignites. Finally, once this whole earthquakes thing is settled, they may owe a lot of people a whole lot more in compensation.
And with all that said, I have no problem with the practice so long as residents are properly informed of the practice, its approval process, the risks involved, and the path to a quick and simple compensation method whereby they can be made whole in the event of any ill effects from the practice.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."
From reading the comments already on here, why not just admit there's no amount of proof you work accept. Let's face it. If you're unwilling to trust EPA than there's no one you would trust.
to have turned in to such a blatant corporate whoring stooge then. My sympathies to him. Hopefully he has some other children that turned out right.
Of-course there have been localized issues here and there
If the government workers are that easily corrupted, why do we believe them when they confirm our biases?
That worked hand-in-hand with several university researchers who claimed to 'independently' have 'proven' President Obama's claims regarding environmental policy...
Turns out the 'independent' researchers kept scheduling private meetings with EPA officials and asking for funding to attend symposiums, fund future studies, etc.:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g...
Ken
Sorry, I forgot fracking was invented for geothermal. That's how geothermal is done, and was done before fracking was applied to petroleum too. So I guess it's not ether / or, if you have geothermal, that means you have deep fracking.
from a failed human being. Not only childish and sexist, but lacking the ability to own up for their own words.
If you see words like "Republicans", "Democrats", "socialist", "fascist" or the name of a current or past President in a post in a thread that's not actually political, you can save time by assuming it's nonsense and not reading it.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I thought EPA meant Environmental PROTECTION agency.
Who is advocating for the Environment.
Why aren't they saying that fracking is too dangerous because the risk of leakage over decades into groundwater is unknown?
We are fracking today because economics/tech is making fracking cheaper AT THE MOMENT.
What a foolish shot term monetary gain that future generations will curse us for.
It's reasons like this that us "conspiracy theorist" think the way we do and accuse the government all the time.
If this is correct, then we wouldn't be able to set fire to water as it comes out of the faucite.
If this is correct, the the water table wouldn't be dropping which results in Earthquakes and Sinkholes.
Water which recycles, would be plentyful. But as those deep fracking wells go down, they drill into huge caverns, and the water runs off into them, filling them up, getting contaminated by chemicals which have a smaller molicule than the water itself. and of course that results in a lower water table.
Umm. No, I don't buy this nonseense.
Your comment shows how little you know about drilling and even more how you know nothing about geology or hydrogeology.
First of all, most wells drilled for oil and gas, even in the middle of a field are miles below any known freshwater aquifers. There is typically a mile or more of impermeable rock between the well target and any aquifers, if they even exist, which in some basins they essentially do not exist. Even the grade-school level reference you have given oversimplifies how groundwater recharge works. Since oil and gas are less dense than water the only way they continue to exist in the subsurface is that they have a barrier above them that prevents them from migrating upward. If not for the natural barriers that keep oil and gas underground, all of it would spill to the surface slowly and eventually and it would have already contaminated your shallower aquifers by natural migration. In some shallow aquifers that has naturally happened already, and most of the "examples" of contaminated aquifers actually come from water being in contact with coal or oil and gas bearing rocks naturally in the subsurface. I test water wells, and can assure you that so far I have tested hundreds of wells prior to any drilling being done that were already contaminated by oil and gas from natural migration, NOT from fracing. In these sorts of water wells, when the water level is dropped by overutilization of the groundwater resource, they often begin to produce more methane because the water pressure was actually preventing the methane from desorbing. In other cases, bacteria from the surface can migrate into water wells through normal recharge channels, or through existing water wells, and begin producing methane. I am still searching for an example of an aquifer that has "had the crap contaminated out of the water" by the gas drillers since in most cases the most likely contaminant of aquifers is actual crap from actual people who use substandard sewage systems.
So tap water that catches fire is not evidence enough? wow!
Look, I *know* someone at the EPA so I should be able to stand up and clap for them but....
Their wording says it all: They have not found widespread evidence that water is affected *now*. Right now. Not later, or in the years ahead, but right now.
I have a very bad feeling that in ten years, when they do the studies again, the shit will hit the fan, but then it'll be too late. What are they gonna do, purify underground aquifers? Yeah, that won't cost a gajillion dollars or anything.
-
Sadly, neo-cons want to keep the oil and nat gas flowing while ignoring other forms of alternative energy. Then you have the liberals that want to stop fracking. Yet, fracking is a golden opportunity.
Basically, these companies are fracking wells at about 6-8000' down. In addition, the wells are typically horizontal, as opposed to vertical. Finally, they are drilled relatively close to each other.
So, once 'spent', if another well was drilled 2000-3000' BELOW THESE wells and fracked, it would very likely go upwards towards the fracking of above. Basically, in this last well, they could push the remains of the oil/nat gas out these other lines and then leave a new clear path in which water can be sent to flow from the deep well to these horizontal wells that are no longer needed. At 8000-12,000, most of the temps in this region are in the 150-300C range.
Liberals speak of wanting AE, and here it is being drilling for them. All that is needed is to take advantage of the old fracking wells that have 'dried up'. And unlike Solar and Wind, geo-thermal energy is available year around. In addition, if not pulled TOO fast, then these will continue to last for a long time.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The frackers pump highly poisonous chemicals into the ground to crack the stone. That stuff might bubble up into aquifers decades from now. The EPA is a bit fast on calling fracking to have no major impact on drinking water...unless they invented time travel. If that is the case I'd be interested in that technology.