Awkward! Hydraulic Fracturing Opponent Funds Study Finding It Doesn’t Contaminate Water
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The technology, which breaks up shale rock thousands of feet below the earth to release trapped oil and natural gas, has driven down energy prices and transformed America’s energy economy.
In 2012, the University of Cincinnati started testing Ohio wells to see if hydraulic fracturing was causing water contamination. The project was partly funded by a $20,000 grant from the Deer Creek Foundation.
The Deal Creek Foundation is no fan of hydraulic fracturing. In 2014 it gave $25,000 to the Media Alliance in Oakland, Calif., to help fund a documentary on the “rise of ‘extreme’ oil and gas extraction - fracking, tar sands development, and oil drilling in the Arctic.” In 2009, the foundation gave $20,000 to the Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana activist group that falsely claims, “Fracking damages water, land and wildlife.”
Earlier this month, Professor Amy Townsend-Small, the head of the project, announced her team’s findings to the Carroll County Concerned Citizens, a group of local anti-fracturing activists, The (New Philadelphia) Times-Reporter reports:
It was shortly after Dr. Townsend-Small released that statement that a pin drop on the carpet would have been overheard. The silence was so obvious that even the leader of the group Mr. Paul Feezel said: “You all are very quiet tonight.”
Then things got really interesting. Back to The Times-Reporter story:
“I’m really sad to say this but some of our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results,” Townsend-Small said.
The University of Cincinnati researchers’ findings match what other experts have found: Hydraulic fracturing, when done properly, is safe for the environment:
- A Yale University-led study didn’t find evidence that hydraulic fracturing natural gas wells contaminates ground water.
- An Energy Department laboratory found that neither natural gas nor hydraulic fracturing fluid traveled upward through the rock in wells tested in Pennsylvania.
- In 2014, Interior Secretary (and former petroleum engineer) Sally Jewell told lawmakers, “I do believe [hydraulic fracturing] can be done safely and responsibly, and has been in many cases.”
- Even EPA has looked at the science and concluded that hydraulic fracturing has not had “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.”
It may have been an awkward moment for fracturing opponents, but it was good news for supporters of safe, effective American energy development.
Sean Hackbarth is a policy advocate and Senior Editor, Digital Content, at U.S Chamber of Commerce. He twitters at @seanhackbarth and is a contributing author at the ARRA News Service.
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