A study by researchers at the University of Cincinnati found fracking does not cause groundwater contamination, but now those researchers are having trouble finding funding to continue their work.
Amy Townsend-Small, an assistant professor of geology at University of Cincinnati, led a three-year monitoring study of private drinking wells in Carroll County, Ohio. The study, which was a graduate student’s thesis paper, monitored drinking water before, during and after fracking operations began in the area, which would differ from other studies that started after fracking operations began.
Studies on whether fracking contaminates groundwater have been mixed. Some have found no groundwater contamination from the process. Some have found that surface pollution tends to seep down into rock and contaminate groundwater, while others have shown that fracking wastewater has moved from underground wells into aquifers used for drinking water. A preliminary report from the Environmental Protection Agency found no “widespread, systemic” pollution of groundwater, but that has been challenged by its Science Advisory Board, and a teleconference is being held on it Thursday.
Townsend-Small’s team found there was no relationship between methane concentration in drinking water and a well’s proximity to a fracking site. Fracking produces methane, the primary component of natural gas.
Since the study was published, Townsend-Small and her researchers have had trouble getting funding to continue to monitor drinking wells in Carroll County. While finding that fracking doesn’t contaminate drinking water isn’t popular among environmental groups that help fund research, Townsend-Small is loathe to chalk it up to political pressure.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “I don’t know whether our findings weren’t exciting enough for people or, in general, if monitoring studies aren’t super glamorous.”
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of drilling into rock layers deep underground and then injecting a mixture of water and chemicals into the rock to release natural gas. The gas then flows out of the well where it’s captured for use. Ohio’s economy has boomed in recent years due to increased production of natural gas from fracking.
University of Cincinnati spokesman Greg Vehr said the study was paid for by anti-fracking groups who may have been confused about the findings. He said Townsend-Small is a good professor whose study followed sound techniques.
“The facts are the facts,” he said.
Ohio state Rep. Andy Thompson said he wouldn’t be surprised if Townsend-Small and her researchers couldn’t get funding to continue the study because its findings are contrary to what environmental groups want.
Thompson said the science in the study was sound and he imagined the researchers ended up with different findings than what they expected. He said he believes the funders didn’t get the results they hoped for.
“There’s always going to be a little bit of politics when it comes to energy because there are folks who are fundamentally opposed to fossil fuels,” he said.
The report was published last month on the website for Carroll Concerned Citizens, the group that worked with Townsend-Small and her team as community partners.
About three weeks after the study was published on that website, Thompson, a Republican, called on the university to publish the study on its site. Thompson said he believes it’s important for people to know if scientific research shows their water is safe.
“I don’t want people to be unduly scared,” he said. “I want them to be reassured if the news is good.”
Typically, scientific research is not published until it has been peer-reviewed, which hasn’t been done, Townsend-Small said. But the university put the study online in response to the lawmaker’s concerns. Townsend-Small said the researchers are working on finding a journal to review the study.
Two funders of the study named by Thompson, the Ohio Department of Higher Education and the National Science Foundation, did not immediately comment on why Townsend-Small was having trouble finding additional funding. A spokesman at the Ohio Department of Higher Education said he could not immediately find record of the agency giving Townsend-Small’s team a grant.
Studies on whether groundwater is contaminated by fracking have been mixed.
A Yale University study found no groundwater contamination from fracking in southern Illinois. A Department of Energy study found no groundwater contamination from sealed wells in Pennsylvania. A report done jointly by Ohio State University, Duke University and the University of Rochester found that fracturing wastewater wells below ground did not cause well water contamination in Pennsylvania and Texas.
However, a University of Texas-Arlington study showed chemicals commonly associated with fracking were contaminating drinking water near Texas natural gas wells. Another study from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences showed contaminants from fracking moved through rock layers and polluted an underground aquifer in Pennsylvania.
The Environmental Protection Agency released a preliminary report in June showing that its five-year study didn’t reveal widespread contamination of drinking groundwater due to fracking. Isolated incidents were found in Pennsylvania and Texas, among others, but the study stated fracking has not had huge effects on groundwater quality.
Most groundwater pollution is caused by surface pollution seeping down into groundwater through soil and rock as opposed to fracking wastewater seeping up, the study reported. Fracking wastewater is often injected into rock in sealed wells.
The EPA report has received blowback from environmental groups who say it has been unduly influenced by energy companies profiting off the natural gas boom, which has been caused by fracking. The EPA is set to hold a teleconference Thursday about a peer review of the report by its Science Advisory Board.
Despite calling the EPA’s study “comprehensive,” the panel of scientists said in January its findings that there has been no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water” was a vague statement that needed revisiting.
“The [board] is concerned that these major findings are presented ambiguously within (the study) and are inconsistent with the observations, data and levels of uncertainty presented and discussed in the body of the draft,” the scientists stated.
While the EPA was tasked with coming up with a national assessment, the scientists urged the agency to look more locally.
The scientists said the EPA needed to focus more on incidents in Pennsylvania, Wyoming and Texas where fracking is “perceived” by the public to have caused problems with drinking water.
“These local-level hydraulic fracturing impacts can be severe, and the draft Assessment Report needs to do a better job of recognizing the importance of local impacts,” the report stated.
Finding that groundwater isn’t contaminated by fracking is politically unpopular among green groups who take issue with EPA statements that no “widespread, systemic” contamination of groundwater has taken place.
Earlier this week, Lena Moffitt, head of the Sierra Club’s Dirty Fuels campaign, told the Science Advisory Board the EPA’s study doesn’t reflect what’s actually happening in communities where companies are fracking.
“We hope that you will clearly recommend that this sentence citing no ‘widespread, systemic impacts’ be removed from the executive summary, as, per your report, it does not accurately describe the EPA’s own findings, and has absolutely been interpreted by the public as the primary finding of the study,” she said.
“To see from your report that this is an inaccurate reflection of the EPA’s own study is infuriating, and this must be rectified.”
