E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Left: Sherry Vargson, who leased the mineral rights under a portion of her farm to the gas company Chesapeake Energy, illustrates her assertion that methane has leached into her well water by lighting the water on fire as it pours from her kitchen sink in Granville Summit, Pennsylvania, March 8.
Right: Ray Kimble shows the discoloration in a gallon of water he says came from his well in Dimock, Pennsylvania, March 8.
EDITOR'S NOTE: An earlier version of this story mischaracterized the extent of the water problems.
European Pressphoto Agency (EPA) reports:The gas rush in Pennsylvania, created by the controversial drilling process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking—which requires injecting huge amounts of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure thousands of feet beneath the Earth's surface to extract reserves of natural gas, has brought an economic boom to the state, generating 23,000 jobs, and billions of dollars in state and local tax revenues. It has caused complaints in Northeastern Pennsylvania that the drilling is polluting the water table with dangerous quantities of methane. Some residents now rely on outside water distribution, and are making their protests heard. Yet with the gas industry expected to keep drilling here—as many as 2,500 new wells are expected in Pennsylvania every year—residents opposed to fracking are bracing for a drawn-out fight.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Ray Kimble fills up a 500 gallon water tank, called a buffalo, with fresh water which he will then distribute daily to neighbors whose water is non-potable near Dimock, Pennsylvania, March 8.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Support trucks for hydraulic fracturing are seen in the reflection of a car's side mirror outside Dimock, Pennsylvania, March 9. Heavy gas drilling trucks have caused so much damage to local roads that communities are requiring gas companies to bond the roads, and thus reimburse the towns for asphalt repairs.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
Anti-fracking protestors concerned about natural gas development in the Marcellus Shale gather outside the Marcellus Midstream Conference and Exhibition, which promotes the development of infrastructure needed to transport and process natural gas, at the David Lawrence Convention Center in downtown Pittsburgh, Pa., March 20.
Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA
A hydraulic fracturing drill rig at dusk near Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, March 9. The drilling practice requires injecting huge amounts of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure thousands of feet beneath the earth's surface to extract reserves of natural gas.
The Marcellus Shale formation that lies under parts of New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia is believed to hold 84 trillion cubic feet (2.38 trillion cubic meters) of recoverable natural gas -- enough to supply the nation's gas-burning electrical plants for 11 years. But health concerns have risen over the drilling practice which many believe have caused air and groundwater pollution in other states where thousands of shale gas wells have been drilled — including Texas, Wyoming, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
- Here, in New York, a coalition has formed to fight fracking.
- In Wyoming, environmentalists are suing over the fluids during the process.
- More on the drilling practice in Pennsylvania on NPR.
- New York Times Magazine story on fracturing in Pennsylvania from Nov. 2011.
- More about hydraulic fracturing process and studies by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- FAQ from the Environmental Protection Agency on natural gas drlling in the Marcellus Shale (PDF)
Leave a Comment:
Is there no one from MSNBC who is monitoring this site? This isn't photo *journalism* by any reputable definition of the term. This is unadulterated and malicious propaganda with nothing even remotely resembling the truth.
If this is allowed to stand as is, all I could say in response is shame, shame on you!
I took the headline "Pennsylvania water tainted by hydraulic fracturing" and asked them to look at these facts:
- PA DEP says this statement is false
- EPA says this statement is false
- the Duke U study of 2011 results are inconsistent with this statement and presented no evidence consistent with the claim
- the Center for Rural Pennsylvania study of 2011 results are inconsistent with this claim and present no evidence consistent with such a statement
- Independent scientists, including environmental and water quality experts who have studied this situation say this statement is false (more correctly, they've found no evidence that it is true, while all the evidence they DO have is not consistent with the claim)
- NO QUALIFIED EXPERT OR TEAM THAT HAS STUDIED THIS ISSUE HAS MADE THE STATEMENT YOUR HEADLINE MAKES OR FOUND EVIDENCE CONSISTENT WITH SUCH A CLAIM
It only take a tiny bit of reporting and researching skill to find out this statement is not supported by any evidence and the claim cannot truthfully be made. NO ONE with knowledge of this situation is making the claim you are making here. So WHY would MSNBC publish such a headline? You are making false reports and blaming an engineering process for damage that it simply did not do. What you've done here is no better than making any other false accusation. Again, NO ONE is claiming that hydraulic fracturing "has left much of the water in Northeastern Pennsylvania non-potable, leaving many residents to rely on outside water distribution." Not one single qualified person with knowledge of the situation would make such a claim at this time.
Why would MSNBC do this? Is this ethical journalism to publish something that you obviously have not bothered to fact check on even a basic level? You could make and publish any claim you like if you're willing to make this claim. You could just as easily say, "High gas prices caused by aging interstate highway system" - and have EXACTLY the same level of truth that you display here.
I don't understand how or why anyone responsible for informing the public with truthful, factual information could do this. I just don't understand it.
I think if your tap water burns there may be small problem.
@DEN-1189913 - please explain how the presence of flammable amounts of methane in a water well, which is quite common, leads automatically to the conclusion that hydraulic fracturing is to blame? Especially when flammable amounts of methane in the private water wells of Pennsylvania and West Virginia was quite common long before anyone even thought of producing gas from a shale. A study done by the USGS previous to 2006 (and previous to shale gas development) found that most water wells in West Virginia had detectable levels of methane in them, and 1 out of every 8 wells had concentrations that were flammable and potentially explosive. Considering that Susquehanna County, PA has over 20,000 private water wells in it, that makes for a flammable faucet everywhere you turn if it's as common as in West Virginia. You shouldn't be able to drive more than a couple miles there without passing a water well that you could catch on fire, if it has the same numbers as West Virginia. And it wouldn't matter if you took that drive now, or 15 years ago before shale gas drilling - the place was covered up with methane contaminated wells back then, too.
Furthermore, studies that have done water quality and chemistry testing in PA water wells before, during and after drilling took place in an area have shown no significant changes in water quality or chemistry. In addition, the Center for Rural Pennsylvania study that did this type of testing on about 240 wells (don't have the exact number in memory right now) found that almost half of the wells tested failed Safe Drinking Water Act standards - BEFORE any drilling took place in the area.
What you're doing here is like someone who just doesn't like a guy named Joe, so when he sees a discarded soda can on the highway, he concludes Joe must've done it. When a public building gets vandalized, he naturally concludes that Joe musta done it, because by God he just doesn't like Joe and he's dead sure that Joe is a bad guy, based solely on his emotional feelings about Joe.
Now replace "Joe" with "hydraulic fracturing" and you'll simply be able to blame anything bad, or at least the maximum possible bad things, on "hydraulic fracturing" because you just don't like it, you're against it no matter what, and it's evil and everything that can possibly be blamed on it, should be - and the truth be damned.
I completely agree with Chris Salmon, who btw (if it isn't already obvious from his comments) is one of the leading experts on this subject.
Chris Salmon--got to love your enthusiasm for unregulated capitalism.
Your reasoning is cute, typical of industry shills who cast doubt on any science that prevents them from making a dollar.
Care to take on the evidence of people getting sick from fracking?
They are all faking the symptoms to exploit the industry, right?
People, it's just common sense. If you burn fossil fuels, the air becomes polluted and toxic. If you spill fossil fuels into the ocean it becomes polluted and toxic. If you pump chemicals into the ground they will eventually reach groundwater that is used for drinking or become part of natural water environments. It doesn't matter what your background on this issue is. A 10 year old could tell you it's not going to end well. DUUUHHHHHH! No to fracking. Yes to zero emission energy sources. If the effort that is put into lobbying congress and swaying public opinion was put in to researching and developing cost efficient zero emissions energy sources, we'd all already being using them. But even cost efficient zero emission sources aren't as good as windfall profits right? @!$%# the future. We all need money now. So naive. In ten years, when the Delaware river is 5 times as polluted as it already is, the reports are finally being confirmed that fracking chemicals leached in to natural water ways, and CHK has all the money in the bank, remember these words. "I told you so"