Ms. Glasser (“Fracking too risky,†12/28/11) makes a number of misleading claims about hydraulic fracturing in a recent letter, not the least of which is that the technology is “incredibly dangerous.†But the truth is, fracturing has been used more than 1.2 million times in North America over the past 65 years, safely and efficiently. It’s a safety record that has been confirmed by the EPA more than a dozen separate times over the past 16 months.
As for the charge that fracturing causes methane to seep into drinking water, a recent study by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania found the opposite to be true. Indeed, as one of the researchers noted, “we didn’t see any clear evidence of any impacts from hydraulic fracturing†relating to methane in water. Private water wells often do have naturally occurring methane in them, a phenomenon that’s been documented by state regulators going back more than 100 years.
Finally, it’s interesting that Ms. Glasser would allege water contamination in a play, An Enemy of the People, was “very likely†caused by hydraulic fracturing. That play was written by a Norwegian playwright in 1882, or more than six decades before the first natural gas well was ever fractured, which occurred in Kansas in 1947.
Hydraulic fracturing is helping to create hundreds of thousands of jobs and boost local economies, but even this incredible technology is not able to travel through time. At least not yet.
Steve Everley
Energy In Depth
Washington, D.C.
“But the truth is, fracturing has been used more than 1.2 million times in North America over the past 65 years, safely and efficiently”. Not true. The process that is being used now, has only started being used around10 years ago and is a combination of of four different processes. It’s sucking out all our water resources let alone the potential for water contamination.