A new draft report from the Environmental Protection Agency concludes that extraction of oil and gas by hydraulic fracturing has “not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.” The few incidents that have occurred are the result of either not maintaining proper safeguards or equipment failure. That conclusion should not be a surprise since hydraulic fracturing has been used since 1947. The EPA study, which began in 2010, tracked water used throughout the fracking process, from acquiring the water to mixing chemicals at the well site and injecting so-called “fracking fluids” into wells, to collection of wastewater, wastewater treatment and disposal.
It will be interesting to see if radical enviros can get that conclusion changed for the final report. If you need a cure for insomnia, you can download all or parts of the 998-page report here (click download tab).
While “fracking” has been used for a long time, technology to drill many nearly horizontal holes at depth from one well-head is relatively new. That technology, together with fracking, is what has produced the oil and gas boom and allowed exploitation of previously unavailable resources. It also provides an environmental benefit because it allows development of a resource from a much smaller surface footprint.
For more information about hydraulic fracturing, see my ADI review of the book “Just the Fracks, Ma’am.”
In that article, engineer and environmentalist Greg Kozera, debunks some of the myths about hydrofracking. Kozera writes, “Since 1947, more than one million wells have been fracked with few incidents. Hydrofracking has added millions of barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to our energy reserves. It has allowed us to heat our homes and run our cars. Over 90 percent of the wells in the United States require fracking to be productive.”