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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.
Or from the Con-side, the EPA is the devil when they regulate industry, but when they say it's A-Ok, it's the voice of angels.
So this is news to you for some reason?
Greedy cocksuckers like you
Yeah. You tell 'em. As you sit there barefoot in your yurt posting on Slashdot using telepathy; no electricity, polymers or climate control involved.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
So in other words they're saying it could have been too contaminated to tell where it came from.
More like there was already contamination there from other sources, so it was impossible to say for sure if the fracking was at fault or not.
Which opens up an interesting possibility for the whole fracking controversy: what if the fracking in and of itself isn't causing contamination, but something about it exacerbates already existing issues (e.g. natural sources of contaminates or long forgotten buried crap from the first half of the 1900s). Sort of like how someone might claim to be allergic to wifi, and even show symptoms when a router is turned on or off nearby, but in actuality it's the high frequency noise from the power supply switching kicking off their previously undiagnosed anxiety disorder.
Every oil or natural gas well ever drilled goes through the focking water table to get to the hydrocarbons we have grown accustomed to having at the ready. There is a protocol required when drilling, in that the well must be cased with concrete to a depth beneath where the fresh water table ends. There are a million+ wells producing in the US alone right now, and many times that number of abandoned wells since Titusville in the 1860's.
There is an environmental consequence for every form of energy we humans use, mind you, but if the failure rate of the casing was only 1% over the timetable when wells were even cased, that is still a metric fuckton of water supply contaminations.
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
Ernest Hemingway
"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
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/
Every time I'm stuck behind some clunker from the 1970s, or even a diesel from the 1990s, with my car's AC sucking in (despite being on the recycled air setting) the fumes from an era of under-regulation, I'm reminded of why the EPA is generally a good thing, and how much better off we are with it. Remember: you're choking on air that twenty years ago was the norm for driving through.
Yeah, sometimes they're not effective enough, but I think the nation's generally better off thanks to their work.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
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.