The Fuss Over Fracking – Debunked Again!

      
Well, all those hysterical Hollywood environmental activists can rest easy tonight, and maybe they won’t have to make any more movies about the evil technique used by those evil oil companies called “fracking”, which they think should be banned. You remember that recent film with Matt Damon, showing how fracking contaminated all those farmer’s land and ruined a whole town. Why you could hardly throw a cigarette on the grass without causing a blaze reminiscent of the Chicago fire.

 The Associated Press released a story today, which I found on page 14 of my newspaper, stating the results of a year-long DOE study which concluded that there is absolutely no evidence that potentially toxic chemicals used in drilling for shale gas, move up to contaminate drinking water aquifers at a Western Pennsylvania drilling site. It also confirmed that any of the chemicals used in the process stay thousands of feet below the shallower areas that supply drinking water.

Of course, most of us with experience in this method and familiar with similar studies conducted by the major oil companies are not surprised, but this is the first independent confirmation of their data. I bet if the results showed otherwise, it would be on page one today and on every TV news show to beat.

The chemicals were tagged (probably radioactively), and also showed that although they were injected at a depth of 8,000 ft, no trace was found in a monitoring zone that was located at 5,000 ft, which shows they would be more than a mile from aquifers that are usually located at 500 ft. Most of the rock in between is virtually impermeable. I’m sure most of the people living in PA, NY, Ohio, and West Virginia, which are located over the giant Marcelous Shale formation, will be glad to hear about this, if the news ever gets out.

Of course, the results were tempered by the DOE with all sorts of qualifications, probably with suggestions from the EPA like, “this is only the initial study of this type, the study is on-going, it does not mean that other formations will be the same, etc., etc. So the dispute will continue for years but at least this should accelerate the drilling permits in these States, create more jobs, and bring us closer to energy self-sufficiency.

Once we get rid of this administration, we can move closer to energy independence in about 10 years. Remember, we have been using fracking techniques for 75 years and not a single death from chemical or gas contamination has ever been recorded. It reminds me of the environmental icon, Rachael Carson, who caused the ban on DDT because she said it was hazardous to humans, with very little data to that affect. Well, millions of adults and children have died of malaria in Africa as a result of her lobbying since then, because other pesticides are not as effective.

 This is a risk/reward issue and sometimes technology causes some risks which we must address in a civil, scientific, and objective way.