Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) is the process used by the energy industry to extract immense deposits of oil and natural gas from deep geologic formations that only a few years ago were unreachable. It involves injecting a solution of water and chemicals far underground, typically thousands of feet below groundwater supplies. Fracking was first used in Oklahoma in the 1940s and in the years since has been employed in more than a million oil and gas wells across the nation. There is not a single independently documented instance of groundwater contamination by fracking anywhere in the country, a fact that was confirmed as recently as May by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson during congressional testimony. So why did the EPA announce Thursday in a draft report that chemicals “likely” associated with fracking were found at a drilling site near Pavilion, Wyo.? Big Green activists who are determined to stop fracking will loudly proclaim from every media rooftop in coming days that there is now “proof” that fracking endangers drinking water across America. Here’s what these ideologically blinded zealots won’t tell you:
The next two sentences in the EPA announcement quoted in the opening paragraph state: “EPA also re-tested private and public drinking water wells in the community. The samples were consistent with chemicals identified in earlier EPA results released in 2010 and are generally below established health and safety standards.” By “below,” the EPA means that chemicals in the groundwater do not exceed acceptable health and safety standards.
As for the chemicals “likely” associated with fracking, they could have from multiple sources. For example, Energy in Depth, an industry research group that supports fracking, notes that the U.S. Geological Survey found that water quality in the area is unusually variable because of the geology’s “highly variable lithology [i.e. general geologic characteristics], permeability, and recharge conditions.” The area has also in recent years featured unusually high levels of pesticides and significant drainage problems, according to the USGS.
But don’t expect such facts to deter Big Green propagandists – and their allies in the liberal mainstream media — from spreading mountains of misinformation, as well as wild-eyed predictions of doom if fracking is not instantly banned. Some of them have already started, as seen in a headline published a few weeks ago: “EPA finds compound used in fracking in Wyoming aquifer.” That unsupported assertion appears over a story published on its website by Pro Publica, a New York-based outfit that describes its purpose as “using the moral force of investigative journalism to spur reform through the sustained spotlighting of wrongdoing.” Funny, we thought credible journalists gathered all of the facts before assigning blame. The facts remain as they were stated by Jackson in May: The EPA has not yet documented a single case in which fracking caused groundwater contamination.
