Your moral and intellectual superiors;
The headline on the AP “Big Story” on January 5 read “Some States Confirm Water Pollution From Drilling”. Not too ominous. But reporter Kevin Begos says in the lead paragraph that “…hundreds of complaints have been made about well-water contamination from oil or gas drilling, and pollution was confirmed in a number of them, according to a review that casts doubt on industry suggestions that such problems rarely happen.” Whoa! Lots of water is being contaminated, and drilling companies are lying.
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Complaints? Yes, plenty. And that news comes first. But actually polluted wells? Not many, information that comes much later. And, even while acknowledging that the complaints refer to ALL drilling, Begos nonetheless manages to emphasize the connection to fracking, devoting a couple early paragraphs to the drilling technology that’s stirring up controversy, even going so far as to note that while other sorts of drilling may cause pollution, “Experts say the most common type of pollution involves methane, not chemicals from the drilling process.” Oops, there we go again… confusing complaints and pollution.
I would assume that most of these complaints come from neighbours when other neighbours drill new water wells.
When both neighbours drill into the same water vein a certain amount of dirt etc. will appear in the water of all those on the vein.
Uninformed neighbours would understandably complain about dirty water.
A simple good flushing after the new well is drilled looks after the problem.
Fracking is done thousands of feet below the water table, however these facts don’t sell newspapers to the chronically scared and misinformed.
You have to remember that reporters went to J-school largely because math is hard.
Yeah then there are the “proven” cases of methane in wells…..in places like “Burning Springs Penn.”………
In Lambton County On., in the vicinity of Oil Springs, water wells are all set back a distance from buildings, because with electric pumps, the pump-houses frequently explode/burn.
I recall a fella, nearby here , who rocked about with a petition to shut down a metal recycling business, which he alleged polluted his well……2 miles hence, on the opposite side of a valley…….his neighbour had drilled a new well and had hit sulphur water…….
As a lifetime Alberta living on a farm in oil/gas country I simply haven’t heard of any negative effects from the fracking of tens of thousands of wells. I have heard of explosive methane in well water, long before any gas wells were drilled. Most water wells here are 60 to 300 feet while the gas wells are 5,000 to 10,000 feet. any chance of cross contamination is remote.
Sort of reminds me of the woman in Alberta years ago who lived north of Calgary and claimed that a natural gas pipeline about 600 ft from her house had somehow magically contaminated her well. She got pages and pages of attention from brain dead, unsceptical “journalists” when she showed them her “proof” which was, what she claimed, a piece of “pipeline coating” (which was dutifully photographed and appeared in papers) that had somehow migrated through those 600 ft of ground to get into her water.
It was absolutely clear in the photos that the item had nothing to do with the pipeline and when it was analyzed it was revealed to be nothing more than a piece of the impeller blade of her own water pump.
The story just dissolved away, but the true story of the nonsense this woman was spewing never did show up in the papers.
The lie was told….and broadcast by idiots that call themselves “journalists”.
just like the “reports” of the bullets that fell near a palistinian/Lebanese woman’s house a few years ago, there she was holding 2 rounds that came straight out of the manufacturer’s box, so it still puzzles me how they fell near her house!!! Same LSM BS reportage.
Interesting though the number of earthquakes up to 4.6 that fracking has caused
http://www.bcogc.ca/node/8046/download
Presstitutes, that are too stupid to even charge for publicizing deliberate misinformation.
The anti-fracking folks are the same people who believe in AGW. Their ‘reality’ is defined by what they see in the biased media they read/watch, and by what their Farcebook friends say. These are not deep minds capable of grasping the big picture, so they narrowly filter and focus on what they ‘believe’. Fact’s are not that important, especially when they conflict with preconceived notions.
Unfortunately they breed and vote.