The process of “hydraulic fracturing,” known as fracking, has come under attack by activists for allegedly contaminating drinking water. And while they’ve been unable to confirm any such instance, they point to Pennsylvania as a likely source because of all the activity surrounding the Marcellus shale reserve. But a new study by the Department of Energy should allay these concerns. According to DOE, after injecting manmade tracers in Pennsylvania’s Greene County, they’ve been unable to find any drilling fluids higher than 5,000 feet underground – far below the depth of a typical drinking well. With other studies showing identical results, it appears this drinking water hype keeps coming up dry.
But the drivers of companies hired to conduct frack water to holding tanks have been known to spill them out on the ground, thinking they were unobserved. This may not be a large volume of water, but supervision of contractors is obviously a little careless.
Full article here: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-study-finds-fracking-chemicals-didnt-spread
“”This is good news,” said Duke University scientist Rob Jackson, who was not involved with the study. He called it a “useful and important approach” to monitoring fracking, but he cautioned that the single study doesn’t prove that fracking can’t pollute, since geology and industry practices vary widely in Pennsylvania and across the nation.”