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EPA Says No Evidence That Fracking Has "Widespread" Impact On Drinking Water 266
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.
Oops ... (Score:5, Insightful)
... and we worked very closely with industry throughout the process.
Re: (Score:3)
Well I'm glad that's settled. No more problems here! Also, it doesn't cause earthquakes.
Re: (Score:2)
Uhm - that wasn't the National Geographic Survey reporting - it was the EPA.
However - I do get the sarcasm ;-)
Re: Oops ... (Score:2)
I think you mean the U.S.G.S. - U.S. Geological Survey...
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Re:Oops ... (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
I think what he's saying is that Will helped him out.
Biased (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Biased (Score:2)
Re:Biased (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is more subtle than that. It's basically the same problem that nuclear power has. Yes, in theory it's safe and nothing bad will happen. In practice, especially for fracking, you have a bunch of money driven companies who will always put profit above the environment and your health. They will be as cheap as it is economically possible to be, taking into account insurance costs and the risk of being fined or sued for damage they cause.
Take the flammable tap water seen in Gaslands. When they finally admitted it was due to fracking their excuse was that it was just one company that didn't secure their well properly and it will never happen again blah blah. Well, okay, but do we trust those guys? They won't even tell us exactly what shit they are pumping into the ground. If something bad does happen we know from past experience they will try to bankrupt anyone who sues them by racking up massive legal fees for a pittance in compensation a decade or two after the fact.
The EPA's report does nothing to fix these issues.
Re: (Score:2)
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Fracking chemicals are considered trade secrets, at least the companies involved regularly bleat like stuck pigs whenever some legislature want them to divulge their special sauce. So where exactly do you expect the EPA to get the lists of chemicals used except from the companies involved. How else would you expect them to discern which chemical pollution came from which source? There's a lot of industry in the U.S., some pollute using a wide range of chemicals and which have nothing to do with fracking.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Even the patented compounds are required to have Material Safety Data Sheets onsite and available for anyone who wants to see them, which essentially disclose the contents, just like the contents of your food are disclosed on labels. They don't tell you the exact percentages but
Re: (Score:2)
"Now"???
Re:Oops ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Now keep in mind how slow ground water spreads 'Water at very shallow depths might be just a few hours old; at moderate depth, it may be 100 years old; and at great depth or after having flowed long distances from places of entry, water may be several thousands of years old', http://water.usgs.gov/edu/eart... [usgs.gov]. Families of tomorrow poisoned by the psychopathic greed of today because that water from the centre of contaminating fracking fields with thousands of wells will move over time and it will end up killing thousands.
Re:Oops ... (Score:4, Insightful)
See, the problem is, no one has had issues with widespread systemic impacts.
They have issues with an ALARMINGLY high number of local impacts. Also, I wonder if this is just evaulating the actual fracturing process itself, or if it is including things such as companies dumping produced water 100 feet from a stream (It's happened multiple times - they're not allowed to do it, but underpaid truck drivers take shortcuts.)
Also, part of the reason we haven't had widespread impacts is because people who live in areas with large surface drinking water supplies (as opposed to primary drinking water being underground aquifers) have been fighting hard - New York City has one of the largest untreated water supplies in the world, and it is fed by a network of reservoirs and streams upstate. NYS has been good about keeping fracking AWAY from this infrastructure.
It's just a matter of time before those local impacts become systemic if fracking is allowed in more areas.
Re: (Score:2)
So gather data, write a paper, and submit it to peer review.
If not just how are you any different from people that claim climate change is hoax in spite of the studies or that the anti vacc folks.
It is called only trusting the data you like.
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Psychopathic greed? Energy is integral to any modern society. Stealing babies and chopping them up to make face cream is psychopathic greed.
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Does being a sociopathic fuckwit not put a bit of a crimp on your social life?
You tell me. I wouldn't know.
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Re: (Score:2)
Misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
From the report:
"In its report, the EPA notes that its findings could have been limited because of an insufficient amount of data and the presence of other possible contaminates that made it impossible to conclude fracking's effects on certain areas. "
So in other words they're saying it could have been too contaminated to tell where it came from.
Re:Misleading (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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Or what's going on is that people tend to not bother testing their well water until they hear fracking is going on, then blame anything found on the fracking, even if it was present years ago.
Natural gas is in the water of wells in some areas naturally, but it's not especially harmful to drink it. After all, it's just a hydrocarbon, and our body knows how to handle them.
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Yeah, gasoline is "just a hydrocarbon." Drink up, buddy!
I bet you earned all of two cents for that post. Hope it was worth it.
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Re: Misleading (Score:2)
Oh, I don't doubt that. I was just challenging the "just a hydrocarbon" fallacious generalization of that fact.
A lot more hydrocarbons are getting into water than just methane and natural gas.
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Re: Misleading (Score:2, Insightful)
No, they're saying the effect was small if any was present at all. Don't read what you want it to say, read what it says.
Yeah, BUT (Score:2)
Sure, if your disposal wells don't get too close to drinking aquifers and nobody needed the millions of gallons their pumping up to drink, there's not much effect on the water table.
But it's causing hundreds of earthquakes. Which kinda sucks.
Propaganda (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah - earthquakes that are dwarfed by the vibrations from passing trucks. Why exactly does that suck?
You are either (1) rationalizing a harmful practice in which you have a vested interest, (2) being paid to take deceptive positions on the internet, or (3) have bought the lies of persons in category 1 or 2. That doesn't necessarily make you bad--the oil companies hire *very* good people to do this, and of course as humans we are all very good at rationalizing things and somewhat bad at spotting lies.
These earthquakes are not limited in effect to the side of an interstate. An oil company should not be causing people living in their own homes to go through an earthquake every day, and certainly shouldn't be doing it unless *paying* to insure all of those people for property, casualty, or medical harm resulting from the earthquakes, not to mention partial loss of the use and enjoyment of their property and any decrease in market value.
Admittedly, most are big enough to be felt but too small to do direct and immediate damage. Still, that doesn't mean they always will be, and shaking houses is obviously not good for them and over time causes settling, cracking, etc...
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An oil company should not be causing people living in their own homes to go through an earthquake every day
Again, this ignores magnitude. For example, every movement you make which transmits vibrations to the ground generates earthquakes. Jumping up and down generates roughly a 1 magnitude earthquake (using the normal moment magnitude scale and considering the energy release equivalent to setting off a milligram of TNT).
It doesn't matter if "oil companies" produce hundreds or even billions of earthquakes per day, if the earthquakes are not detectable by those who would be affected. And let us keep in mind th
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In your first response you make an unsupported claim.
Then you divert from that one to pose a typical Straw Man argument.
Where have all the good trolls gone?
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Which is what this report is. The EPA went out and tested water, tested fracking wells, but apparently, it is not good enough for the OP. It seems that the OP will trust no evidence that there is no issue, and just wants fracking to end at all costs (including $4 a gallon gas).
Hashtag GreenTears (Score:3, Insightful)
EPA is God when they agree with the environmentalists. Now we'll hear all about why they're wrong or why this is misleading.
Re:Hashtag GreenTears (Score:4, Insightful)
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?
Re:Hashtag GreenTears (Score:4, Insightful)
Not at all. People who oppose the EPA (myself included) don't do so out of some hatred for the environment, we do so because we believe the EPA is an ineffective way of protecting the environment. We want stricter civil liability for corporations instead of EPA-granted licenses to pollute, and we want more appropriate local and state regulation instead of blanket federal regulations.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Anecdotes are meaningless. That you get a 'good feel' for what the EPA has accomplished is just that. Your story about your good feelings.
So? (Score:2)
I wouldn't knock anecdotes. Science is basically a set of carefully written anecdotes confirming one another.
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For me however, the real problem is assuming that optimizing society for eliminating air pollution is a good idea. Just because things sucked in the 60s doesn't mean that we should be trying just as hard now to reduce today's far less polluted environments.
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The strict emissions standards have generally been set by California first and are then adopted by the EPA. It's also unclear
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It is simple.
Both the left and the right believe what they like and scream that the other side if full of idiots for doing the same.
anti-fracking
anti-vacc
and anti climate change are all in the same boat now.
Re: (Score:2)
Fossil fuels of any kind are a chemical soup there are various chemicals that even if the parts per million are very slight they can cause cancer kill to local wildlife and drastically affect agriculture
Unless, of course, it happens to be that they can't do that because they're at too dilute a concentration.
I am shocked that money can override scientific integrity in a institution only fuction is to protect the amercian people.
Welcome to the land of unintended consequences. Please enjoy your stay.
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The water was flammable decades... (Score:2, Interesting)
before fracking was invented. The Republicans claim that was caused by fracking, but that is a typical Republican lie. At my grandparent's house in PA, they can at times light the water coming out of their faucet on fire. They've been able to do that since the late 1920s. Obviously, this was not caused by fracking, but my grandmother has been on TV several times and used as a pawn in this Republican-created scam. Fracking did not pollute that water. Fracking takes place many thousands of feet blow the
Re:The water was flammable decades... (Score:4, Insightful)
The Republicans claim that was caused by fracking, but that is a typical Republican lie.
Wow, someone that gets it.
Uh .. no. Someone who believes opposition to fracking is led by "The Republicans", is not someone who "gets it".
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Mr. Coward, what you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone on this website is now dumber for having read it. I award you no mod points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
Opposite Day (Score:2)
"Republicans Against Fracking"
"Even though Fracking causes no environmental harm - it must be stopped!"
HMM.
Re:The water was flammable decades... (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Just wanted to add that the problem is inherent. The hole drilled creates a path from the hydrocarbons to the drinking water. A fault in the casing or grout can cause drinking water contamination. All it takes is negligence, incompetence or just Murphy's Law.
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Fracking is wrong so it should be stopped.
That assertion depends on fracking being wrong. If it isn't, then you no longer have an argument for stopping fracking.
I call bullshit... (Score:2, Insightful)
There is no way in hell that we aren't contaminating our water supplies when pushing millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the ground. Yeah they worked closely with the industry. Those golf outings can be brutal.
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That's a little like saying "there is no way we are not polluting the minds of all our four year olds when pushing hundreds of terabytes of porn out onto the Internet.
It's amazing that the classic response from a big government guy when something is determines by a big government operation that they don't agree with. Suddenly the big government operation is rift with corruption and 'golf outings.'
Look again. The same government shysters are behind things like the 'cap and trade' schemes and subsidies to '
Re: (Score:2)
The water is pushed thousands of feet below the water table, so if the wells are cased appropriately (which is what the report is noting) then there is very little chance of groundwater contamination.
From what I've read of the report, it was a well-done study that listed best practices and lessons learned, as well as guidance to industry to maintain safe practices. It's not always bad when government and industry work together, sometimes a real benefit is achieved.
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"There is no way in hell that we aren't contaminating our water supplies when pushing millions of gallons of toxic chemicals into the ground."
There is no way that injecting babies with all those vaccines filled with chemicals and virus particles can not cause harm.
There is no way that the earth is getting hotter. Look at all those blizzards last week and snow.
Science... Try it some time.
define:widespread (Score:2)
ACs (Score:2)
Sure are a lot of Anonymous Cowards on here. Do the shills not even bother registering anymore?
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You think this site is important enough to shill for? Its not like reddit.
But (Score:3)
When the water is bad though, it's a real gas.
I'll be here all week, try the veal.
Maybe but wouldn't geothermal be bettter? (Score:2)
Which would you rather have, fracking, or geothermal?
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Which would you rather have, fracking, or geothermal?
Can't run a car on geothermal and it's not economical to burn fracked oil to generate electricity for the normal market.
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Geothermal, but that's only if transportation can reasonably be brought off hydrocarbons and onto battery tech. Otherwise I'll take both.
Sorry. I forgot, geothermal IS fracking (Score:2)
Sorry, I forgot fracking was invented for geothermal. That's how geothermal is done, and was done before fracking was applied to petroleum too. So I guess it's not ether / or, if you have geothermal, that means you have deep fracking.
Frack water cannot be recycled (Score:2)
> "While 90 percent of residential indoor water use is reused because it is processed by a wastewater treatment facility, water used for fracking is too polluted to be recycled for indoor use."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking_and_water_consumption
As I understand it, it's an awful lot of water.
Might be worth remembering while California cries about their drought.
Re:Frack water cannot be recycled (Score:4, Insightful)
Hmm, EPA estimates all fracking in the USA amounts to 70-140 billion gallons per year.
CA uses about 38 billion gallons per DAY (2010 estimate).
So, if ALL of the water used in fracking (worst case estimate) were diverted to CA, it would increase their water supply by about 1%.
Note that all of the water used in fracking can't be diverted to CA in any case, since we don't have a national water distribution system. Best case would be the water from the western States could be diverted to CA.
So, a quick look around the web shows that maybe 5%, tops, of the fracking is done in places where the water could be diverted to CA. Which amounts to maybe 7 billion gallons of water per year, tops. Which is almost FIVE EXTRA HOURS PER YEAR of water available for CA.
Assuming, of course, that the two DESERT States doing almost all of that fracking couldn't find a use for that water themselves....
Revolving Door: Monsanto and the EPA .. (Score:5, Insightful)
MOD parent up! (Score:2)
This is significant.
Love Canal, NY. A National Symbol. (Score:2)
A "national symbol of a failure to exercise a sense of concern for future generations."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L... [wikipedia.org]
Trading profit for the future.
Might want to RTFA (Score:3)
> "We did not find evidence that these mechanisms [of potentially affecting water] have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States," the report said.
Note that it did not say that the gahzillions of gallons of fresh water that are used for fracking could ever be recovered.
Also, what is "widespread?" A lot of fracking goes on in sparsely populated states, like Wyoming. So maybe only one million people will be poisoned. Not really widespread, right?
Money talks (Score:2)
Same EPA Study: Fracking Pollutes Drinking Water (Score:5, Interesting)
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/
Bull Pucky (Score:2)
Yet (Score:2)
Outstanding news! (Score:2)
The science is settled!
Nice use of ambiguous quotes (Score:4, Insightful)
What does "widespread" mean? Is this like bullets, where statistically they do no harm but in certain localised scenarios (e.g. entering a particular human body at speed) they cause a lot of damage?
I'm not sure what the water management strategies are like in the US, but I find it hard to conceive that communities may not be affected by the impact of fracking in their region. The article mentions the impact in "select areas" - and problems when the water supply is constrained (US never suffers droughts, do they?) - but doesn't go into details in the article. Does this mean that some communities are effectively shut off from their local water supply because of fracking? It's unclear.
I suspect the potential impact of fracking is more complex than the one-line takeaway from a report. But I'm not a geoscientist, so I'll shut up now.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah. So far, fracking has been primarily used in areas that are sparsely populated and/or don't have much surface water (e.g. dry with not much rainfall).
There are lots of examples of local contamination... Drinking water supplies in Dimock, PA have basically been destroyed by fracking.
The big controversy is the Marcellus Shale in NYS - It's a massive resource pretty much located over either the Susquehanna watershed, or worse, the NYC water supply - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N... [wikipedia.org]
NYC's water supply is
Missing evidence (Score:2)
The question becomes, what did the EPA do with the evidence?
But the tapwater lights on FIRE (Score:3)
So I don't claim to be an expert on this, but unless the videos and various accounts of residents nearby significant fracking sites are outright fabricating their stories as part of a massive conspiracy, their fucking tap water can burn seemingly indefinitely once fracking has sufficiently fucked up the local environment. That's pretty messed up. At the very least, the fracking companies should be required to provide a constant supply of clean, drinkable, non-flammable water in place of any water supply they're ruining. Further, they should compensate the homeowners for the additional risk of being surrounded by enough flammable gases that water ignites. Finally, once this whole earthquakes thing is settled, they may owe a lot of people a whole lot more in compensation.
And with all that said, I have no problem with the practice so long as residents are properly informed of the practice, its approval process, the risks involved, and the path to a quick and simple compensation method whereby they can be made whole in the event of any ill effects from the practice.
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The rebuttal I've heard is that while it is certainly distressing to be able to light your tap on fire, you were probably able to do so before the fracking began.
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It's a valid point. Gasland was a 2010 film, and like the catalyst that started the run of people lighting tap water on fire. One that that was discovered about the film was that the scene in which tap water was set on fire was in an area where residents had reported being able to light their tap water on fire in the 1930s. Even a 1976 study done in the area had shown high concentrations of methane in tap water. These are reports and studies done prior to the start of fracking. So yes, I would say it is app
The same EPA... (Score:2)
That worked hand-in-hand with several university researchers who claimed to 'independently' have 'proven' President Obama's claims regarding environmental policy...
Turns out the 'independent' researchers kept scheduling private meetings with EPA officials and asking for funding to attend symposiums, fund future studies, etc.:
http://www.breitbart.com/big-g... [breitbart.com]
Time-saving tip. (Score:2)
If you see words like "Republicans", "Democrats", "socialist", "fascist" or the name of a current or past President in a post in a thread that's not actually political, you can save time by assuming it's nonsense and not reading it.
EPA?? (Score:2)
Who is advocating for the Environment.
Why aren't they saying that fracking is too dangerous because the risk of leakage over decades into groundwater is unknown?
We are fracking today because economics/tech is making fracking cheaper AT THE MOMENT.
What a foolish shot term monetary gain that future generations will curse us for.
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Five times removed? Are you afraid Kevin Bacon didn't get his cut?
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That would need to include up to 5 times removed from the individuals involved, but I am positive we will find money changing hands from the oil industry or the Republicans to make the report turn out like this.
So the EPA makes a conclusion that you think is wrong and you blame the Republican party for bribing somebody? Um, haven't you been LISTENING to the right wing and what they say? They want to ELIMINATE the EPA to same money, or at least drastically cut it's budget... Somehow it just doesn't seem reasonable to assume there is some conspiracy here that involves the Republican party greasing the palms of the EPA just to get a favorable report on fracking...
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Obama has kept his promise about the oceans.
We're not fracking there.
yvw
Re:Who is getting fired for this? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
argumentum ad logicam
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's a starter:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H... [wikipedia.org]
The composition of fracking fluid is well documented. It's highly dilute and the chemicals are common and generally harmless at the concentrations in the fracking fluid (they are even more dilute if they should enter the water table).
Re: (Score:2)
That's exactly what the High Council on Krypton did!
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You wouldn't want to use our surface water. It's full of oil and fertilizer runoff.
Although they've been doing a good job of sneaking it into the aquifer lately as well.
Re: (Score:2)
Calling someone a cock sucker does not imply any reference to homosexuality, or to use your derogatory term, "gays".
You are inferring that, and you are injecting your own hatred into the situation - you're literally asking for someone to call someone else a "faggot".
Fuck off.
Re: (Score:2)
You're trying to rationalize it and failing abysmally.
So, by your logic calling a woman a "carpet muncher" is no slam on lesbians. I call bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
If you know any women, call them cocksuckers...contradiction or not, they won' t like it.
Pussy eater is only an insult in certain subcultures. Strange that.
Re: (Score:2)
"but is an insult not because homosexuality is 'bad'"
Riiight.
So, you're telling me that if a presidential candidate called someone a cocksucker do you think they'd be able to weasel out of it being an implied slam on gays? Really? What planet are you on?
You need to do a better job of rationalization there, bub.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think cocksucker is a term that works well in rational exchanges so we might as well pair the two together.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's called private property, and they have to know when the fracking is taking place so they can get before and after samples. Think much?
Rarely. It is on leased land, not private property (at least not the Industry's private property). Often Federal leases.
Re: (Score:2)
Mod this AC up, please. This story is an example. Should be good news all around -- fracking, which is widespread and has led to cheap natural gas, the cleanest fossil fuel -- is probably, generally benign, so we can concentrate on the outlier cases where it is not. The fact that cheap natural gas is driving coal out of the market has to be a net win for the environment. Maybe I'm an outlier myself, but card carrying member of the Sierra Club here and I'm glad to hear this.