Many scientific studies confirm fracking water contamination

Bill Theisen has myopia (Letter to the Editor, The NEWS, June 27).
He misleads the public just as industry does by using a small preliminary study to come to absolute conclusions about fracking and drinking water contamination.
The results of the study are just what we would hope for!
Now there is a baseline against which possible future contamination will be compared, just as the University of Cincinnati study concludes.
The following are links to articles about drinking water contamination caused by horizontal fracking including reference to the federal EPA Drinking Water Study which concluded there can be drinking water contamination caused by fracking.
The UC study in eastern Ohio was not conclusive.
It only examined 22 wells over a short time period with the lead researcher stating that it’s vitally important that “the people of eastern Ohio should have access to regular monitoring so that they know whether well-casing failures or surface spills have occurred and that their drinking water is still safe.
Higher methane content has been linked to well-casing issues and spills in other areas, including the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania.” Further questioned about the water-quality study’s results, the UC professor agreed that “it’s an overstatement to say the study found no evidence of ‘drinking water contamination’ since it had a relatively narrow focus.
It wasn’t looking for some types of contaminants.”

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