Thursday, July 12, 2012

Fracking, water and what if?

Fracking, water and what if?

Fracking, water and what if?

7:41 PM, July 11, 2012 ι Abby W. Schachter
 
Duke University and California State Polytechnical Institute in Pomona just finished a study of water contamination and a gas drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing in the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania.
 
Know what the study found about water contamination from fracking? There is none.
But the issue of natural gas drilling has become so politicized that instead of publishing the findings without prejudice, the authors decided they had to include a bunch of 'what ifs' in their conclusions.
"No drilling chemicals were detected in the water, and there was no correlation between where the natural brine was detected and where drilling takes place," the study declares.
But instead of stopping there, the scientists just had to put in their two-cents about what might happen sometime in the futre, maybe.
"The biggest implication is the apparent presence of connections from deep underground to the surface," said Robert Jackson, a biology professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University and one of the study's authors. "It's a suggestion based on good evidence that there are places that may be more at risk."
Got that? May be more at risk.
How does Johnson know that? He doesn't.
"The coincidence of elevated salinity in shallow groundwater... suggests that these areas could be at greater risk of contamination from shale gas development because of a preexisting network of cross-formational pathways that has enhanced hydraulic connectivity to deeper geological formations," the paper states.
And one of the scientists asked by the National Academy of Science to peer review the study has a problem with these 'what-ifs' complaining that the research looks more like "science-based advocay" instead of hard science.
Morevoer, the authors agree that they don't have evidence that their contamination fears are actually happening.
"There is a real time uncertainty," Jackson said. "We don't know if this happens over a couple of years, or over millennia."
If they don't know, why are they guessing?

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