Most of the discussion about fracking misses the forest for the trees.<p>Yes, there's a rather significant amount of groundwater contamination due to poorly operated and/or improperly abandoned wells.<p>However, the vast majority of the contamination has nothing to do with whether or not hydrofracturing was applied. It's far more frequently due to bad casing jobs, etc.<p>In other words, most of the contamination is due to sloppy work. It would happen regardless of whether it was a convention or unconventional well.<p>There are situations where fracking can directly lead to contamination. After all, you're deliberately creating permeability in an aquitard. However, these are not anywhere near as common as the cases where a bad casing job, etc can lead to groundwater contamination (every well).<p>In a nutshell, we're seeing an increase in groundwater contamination because of the spike in the number of wells drilled in the areas. It's not directly related to the completion method used in the well (e.g. fracking).<p>However, it doesn't help that there are highly variable state/local regulations and a huge number of sloppy operators.
FTFA: <i>But environmental groups pointed to what they saw as holes in the report. In particular, they said, the report’s authors relied on data supplied by companies and wrote that limitations in data “preclude a determination of the frequency of impacts with any certainty.”</i><p>So, i guess that report is next to worthless then if it solely relies on data that comes from a group that is interested in "proving" the safety of fracking?
I'm a bit skeptical of what the EPA says, because it has been documented to suffer from regulatory capture.<p><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Poison-Spring-Secret-History-Pollution/dp/1608199266" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/Poison-Spring-Secret-History-Pollution...</a><p>But lets assume the EPA is doing its job. At minimum, there needs to be more inspectors - currently there is a huge backlog where high-risk wells are not being inspected. So this problem will just keep getting worse.<p><a href="http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/massive-fracking-federal-lands-overwhelms-critical-inspections" rel="nofollow">http://www.foreffectivegov.org/blog/massive-fracking-federal...</a><p>Also, just a few weeks ago from the NYT:<p><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/earth/fracking-chemicals-detected-in-pennsylvania-drinking-water.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/science/earth/fracking-che...</a>
From Aljazeera:<p>>the EPA was not able to legally force cooperation by fracking companies, almost all of which refused<p>and<p>>One of the companies, Chesapeake Energy, "chipped away at the scope of the plan over two years of talks, limited when and where the EPA could monitor water,"<p>[0] <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/4/epa-says-fracking-doesnt-contaminate-water.html" rel="nofollow">http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/6/4/epa-says-frac...</a>
Questions about the truth of the results aside, I would say that the title of the study should maybe be, Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply <i>Yet</i>. This stuff is still pretty new, after all.
"Worrying over fracking is like seeing an upper middle class family who are $6,000 in debt, and freaking out because one of their kids bought a gumball from a machine."<p><a href="http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-doing/" rel="nofollow">http://slatestarcodex.com/2015/05/11/california-water-you-do...</a>
Riiiiiggghht
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B9-tmudFg0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B9-tmudFg0</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A</a>
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A</a>
There are THOUSANDS of similar reports from fracked areas all over North America.
That isn't the only problem either, when they do what's called "venting" there is large release of carcinogenic chemicals(although some large scale operations mitigate this by capping the vent stack to collect the gases in practice this is the exception not the rule)
We are doing it in Canada as well, absolute insanity! Here is a great documentary <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Nature+of+Things/ID/2332883489/" rel="nofollow">http://www.cbc.ca/player/Shows/Shows/The+Nature+of+Things/ID...</a>