A pair of recently released studies in Pennsylvania—one supported by environmental groups, the other backed by the oil and gas industry—found vastly different results of how wells affect health and water supplies, David Conti reports for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.
A Yale University study published in Environmental Health Perspectives "found increased reporting of certain health issues by people who live within a kilometer of working wells in Washington County," Conti writes. A Penn State University study funded by the industry and published in the peer-reviewed journal Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources "found that fracking water that remains deep underground after a well is
finished will stay trapped in shale, far away from groundwater supplies."
The Yale study, which surveyed 180 households in 2012, "found 39 percent of those living within a kilometer of a working well
reported upper respiratory or skin problems, compared with 31 percent of
those living between 1 and 2 kilometers, and 18 percent of those living
farther away." The study was supported by the Heinz Endowments, which has taken a strict anti-drilling stance in the past year, Conti writes. Travis Windle, a spokesman for the Marcellus Shale Coalition told Conti that the Yale survey was “done in partnership with a local
activist group and was designed to put selective and unproven data
behind a pre-determined and biased narrative.”
Penn State's geosciences professor Terry
Engelder "said his research shows injecting frack water into
deep shale is safe," Conti writes. Engelder said, “The practical implication is that hydro
fracture fluids will be locked into the same ‘permeability jail' that
sequestered over-pressured gas for over 200 million years." Environmentalists said the Penn State study, funded by the drilling industry and including a researcher from Royal Dutch Shell, could not be trusted. (Read more)
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