fracking

An Environmental Protection Agency report released in June on the impacts of fracking on water quality is now being called into question — by none other than the agency's own scientists.

The report initially did not find "widespread, systemic impacts" on drinking water resources close to fracking sites. But the EPA's Science Advisory Board responded in December, after the report was released, that "major findings are ambiguous or inconsistent with the observations/data presented in this report," according to Bloomberg.

The controversy rests on one key aspect of the report's findings. It states that the "...number of identified cases [of contaminated wells], however, was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells."

While this may be accurate, the report goes on to admit that insufficient long-term data on pre and post fracking water quality could have limited their results, and may not explicitly point to the "rarity of effects on drinking water resources."

It's this paucity of information that gives some of the reviewing scientists pause: "I do not think that the document’s authors have gone far enough to emphasize how preliminary these key conclusions are and how limited the factual bases are for their judgments," James Bruckner, a member of the Science Advisory Board, told Bloomberg.

Members of the Science Advisory Board, as well as environmental advocates, are also pushing the EPA to include more detailed analysis of the severity of alleged instances of contamination near drilling sites.

Though the Board's recommendations aren't binding, the EPA will "evaluate" possible changes to the report, according to Bloomberg.



Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a method used to release oil and natural gas from tight rock formations deep underground. Fluids are injected deep into the earth at pressures high enough to fracture the rock surrounding the oil and natural gas deposits, allowing the fuel a clear path to the surface.

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The fluids — toxic slurries of water and volatile organic compounds like benzene — are the primary cause of health impacts when they leach into groundwater supplies used for drinking due to improper storage, disposal, or work-site accidents.

The Independent Petroleum Association of America responded to Business Insider with the following statement, backing up the EPA's original findings and asserting that any revisions were due to pressure from anti-fracking groups:

To be clear, there is nothing ambiguous about EPA’s finding. The terms “widespread” and “systemic” are clearly defined and unequivocal. EPA even offers more clarity, noting that while there were some instances of water impacts (not from the process of hydraulic fracturing itself, but from related activities, such as well casing failures or fluid spills on the surface), the number of these instances “was small compared to the number of hydraulically fractured wells." There is nothing in the draft report from a “scientific and technical” standpoint that suggests EPA’s finding of no “widespread, systemic” groundwater impacts from hydraulic fracturing is incorrect. As a result, we urge the SAB [EPA Scientific Advisory Board] to maintain its role as a scientific body by rejecting calls to change its scientific findings, which are based on political campaigns, not scientific analyses or technical reviews.

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