Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply, E.P.A. Says While Noting Risks • Hacker News Board

Re: Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply, E.P.A. Says While Noting Risks

#21

Post by danso » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 6:58 PM UTC

AC__ wrote: post #20

danso wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OK I downvoted this. And I'm stating that even though I know it's not kosher to have a meta-debate about upvoting/downvoting, but just to dissuade the reflexive suspicion that the downvote is because HN is secretly owned by drilling companies. I don't necessarily disagree with the skepticism, but linking to a bunch of Youtube videos without context is not helpful evidence. And then going on to refer to a vague "THOUS…

They have NO evidence, I downloaded their full report in search of the "official" total of cases where drinking water has been contaminated due to hydraulic fracturing and it is omitted from the report they simply make the assertion that "the number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells" This study doesn't serve to advance our understanding of the hazards of h…

I wouldn't have downvoted this comment...because it actually refers to the report at hand and directly critiques it. I'm not anti-anti-fracking, just anti-anti-anti-fracking generalizations.

Re: Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply, E.P.A. Says While Noting Risks

#22

Post by AC__ » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 7:12 PM UTC

danso wrote: post #21

AC__ wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have NO evidence, I downloaded their full report in search of the "official" total of cases where drinking water has been contaminated due to hydraulic fracturing and it is omitted from the report they simply make the assertion that "the number of identified cases, however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells" This study doesn't serve to advance our understanding of the hazards of h…

I wouldn't have downvoted this comment...because it actually refers to the report at hand and directly critiques it. I'm not anti-anti-fracking, just anti-anti-anti-fracking generalizations.

Also this "A 2009 ProPublica investigation found that contamination was far more prevalent than indicated in the report, citing more than 1,000 cases tied to drilling and fracking that had been documented by courts and state and local governments." http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Fracking_and_water_poll...

Re: Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply, E.P.A. Says While Noting Risks

#23

Post by redfalcon6 » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 7:14 PM UTC

jofer wrote: post #11

Most of the discussion about fracking misses the forest for the trees. Yes, there's a rather significant amount of groundwater contamination due to poorly operated and/or improperly abandoned wells. However, the vast majority of the contamination has nothing to do with whether or not hydrofracturing was applied. It's far more frequently due to bad casing jobs, etc. In other words, most of the contamination is due to…

Yes, but... There are now a huge number of new wells being drilled precisely because of the fracking boom. So if no fracking, then the water doesn't get contaminated. It's not the actual fracturing of rock thousands of feet below that does it, true, it's the pipe that goes there and back. But the responsibilty does roll up to "the driller" which are the guys getting gas out of the ground.

Re: Fracking Has Not Had Big Effect on Water Supply, E.P.A. Says While Noting Risks

#24

Post by AC__ » Fri, Jun 05, 2015, 11:24 PM UTC

AC__ wrote: post #5

Riiiiiggghht https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4LBjSXWQRV8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7B9-tmudFg0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U01EK76Sy4A There are THOUSANDS of similar reports from fracked areas all over North America. That isn't the only problem either, when they do what's called "venting" there is large release of carcinogenic chemicals(although some large scale o…

This is the response I received(astonishingly fast) after writing an email inquiring about the total figure of drinking water contamination cases:

"Thanks for your email. To clarify--the purpose of the study was not to count every instance of impacts to drinking water resources. The purpose was to follow the water and to better understand the potential vulnerabilities. In the draft assessment we looked at all the hydraulic fracturing activities that may have had potential impacts to drinking water resources and make mention of specific events throughout the chapters that serve as examples and illustrate vulnerabilities.

Based upon the information brought together for the assessment – information drawn from over 950 citations– we did not identify widespread impacts on drinking water resources due to hydraulic fracturing operations. The information available is adequate to qualitatively characterize the frequency of occurrence as being small, particularly relative to the number of wells that are hydraulically fractured each year. That same information, however, is not sufficient to quantitatively measure occurrence nationwide. That was one of the information gaps highlighted by the assessment.

I hope this is helpful!

Dayna

202-564-7983

gibbons.dayna@epa.gov

Communications

Office of Research and Development

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency"

So they would have you believe that they don't know how often it happens, however, they do know it doesn't happen often. Yeah, this is the type of science, no fuck that, pseudo-science, that leads to dubious legislation.