Posted on 12/14/2011 11:12:54 AM PST by raptor22
Energy: After admitting there's no documented evidence of groundwater contamination due to a technique used to extract oil and gas from shale, the EPA tries to manufacture a crisis in Wyoming.
At a House Oversight Committee hearing in May, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lisa Jackson confirmed that, despite fears that hydraulic fracturing, commonly referred to as "fracking," would lead to contamination of ground water, there was no independently documented instances that it had occurred.
Jackson told the committee: "I'm not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water."
Suddenly the liberal group Pro Publica is shouting from the proverbial rooftops that fracking is a threat to humanity, and that it has been documented by an EPA draft report released last Thursday. That report said chemicals "likely" associated with fracking were found at a site in Pavillion, Wyo., where EPA monitoring wells were drilled.
First, the contamination was found in two "monitoring wells" drilled by EPA outside of town, not in water wells that actually supply residents their water. Of those water wells, the EPA draft report said it "re-tested private and public drinking wells in the community" and said chemical levels were "generally below health and safety standards" — that is, below levels considered risks to public health. The water was safe to drink.
Suspicions have been raised that the problem may be in how and where the EPA drilled its monitoring wells and not with hydraulic fracturing per se. EPA use of "dense soda ash" to drill its monitoring wells into a hydrocarbon-bearing layer could have skewed the results.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Science? We don’t need no stinking science.
The gas is at least 2500 feet below any drinkable water. Generally closer to 5000. If it gets contaminated it is either because the cement casing in a well failed (basically what happened in the Gulf oil spill) or a tank or holding pond containing the fracking solution springs a leak.
What else is new?
Communists, Socialists and American Liberals all want rationing of all commodities. They see themselves as keeper of the rations.
“Green Groups” = Modern Day Flagellants.
THe greenies can go frack themselves ..if they don’t already.
Green groups MUST use bad science in order to cause hoplophobia, thus increasing their political power.
Environmentalists are like watermelons, green on the outside and commie-red through and through.
As you know, a recent report came out that said ‘fracking’ an oil/gas recovery technique that has been used for decades is causing pollution of ground water. The idea is to shut down the effort to recover large oil and gas resources in U. S. shale deposits.
One of the scientists used by the government in these reports is caught on tape in a similar situation in Ecuador where they went after Chevron Oil. The video shows them agreeing to falsify a report by fudging the data. The idea there is to sue for $50 billion and then hope to get $5 Billion. Chevron is suing them under the Rico statute for an organized conspiracy to commit a crime and these tapes are part of the evidence..
When you read the blog and play the two videos you should be shocked—but probably won’t because this kind of stuff goes on all too often.
http://wizbangblog.com/2011/12/12/ann-maest/
They'd been drinking that stuff for years ~ without once bothering to test it.
Once the problem was discovered they've been obsessed.
M.I.T. released a report on shale gas and stated environmental impacts of shale were ‘challenging but manageable’, and that some cases of the gas entering freshwater tables were ‘most likely the result of substandard well-completion practices by a few operators’.
http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/natural-gas-2011.shtml
The Pennsylvania Assembly and Senate commissioned a study by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania, a bipartisan legislative agency, in regards to the Marcellus shale and found , ‘In this study, statistical analyses of post-drilling versus pre-drilling water chemistry did not suggest major influences from gas well drilling or hydrofracturing (fracking) on nearby water wells.’
http://marcellusdrilling.com/2011/10/new-pa-study-no-link-between-fracking-water-contamination/
University of Texas at Austin’s Energy Institute study concluded , ‘many of the problems appear to be related to other aspects of drilling operations, such as poor casing or cement jobs, rather than to hydraulic fracturing, per se.’
At this Wyoming site, like some in Pennsylvania, the natural gas was in the drinking water supply prior to any drilling in the area.
Natural gas is normally, but not always, found deeper.
The agency also stressed that the findings are unique to Pavillion, where fracturing has taken place both in and below the drinking water aquifer and very close to drinking water wells — conditions that are not common elsewhere in the U.S. The region has been home to oil and gas drilling since the 1950s, and some of the 169 gas production wells in the area were fractured at points just 1,220 feet below the ground.
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2011/12/08/epa-says-hydraulic-fracturing-polluted-groundwater/
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.