Rusty Todd, in the June 29 Cross Country column "Why the Grass Should Not Always Be Greener," offers a valid caution about the large amount of water used to keep lawns green. However, the attempt to portray "fracking's" water use as benign by comparison rests on a flimsy and flawed analysis. Water used for lawn irrigation is not "consumed," as Mr. Todd suggests, but rather remains in the hydrologic cycle, either infiltrating into an aquifer or returning to the atmosphere via evapotranspiration, eventually to fall as rain or snow.

Water used in fracking, however, is chemically contaminated and no longer suitable for consumption by humans or animals, for agricultural purposes or even watering your lawn. It's just gone.

Tom Kiske

College Station, Texas