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EPA: Fracking's no big threat to water
POLITICO ^ | 6/4/15 | ELANA SCHOR

Posted on 06/05/2015 6:41:28 AM PDT by McGruff

The Environmental Protection Agency’s long-awaited report on fracking dismayed liberal green groups Thursday while pleasing the oil and gas industry — the latest episode in both sides’ fraught relationship with President Barack Obama.

The study, more than four years in the making, said the EPA has found no signs of “widespread, systemic” drinking water pollution from hydraulic fracturing. That conclusion dramatically runs afoul of one of the great green crusades of the past half-decade, which has portrayed the oil- and gas-extraction technique as a creator of fouled drinking water wells and flame-shooting faucets.

The report also jibes with Obama’s global warming policies, which have openly promoted the use of natural gas as a more climate-friendly alternative to coal. But for both anti-fracking groups and the industry, it came as yet another example of Obama’s mixed messages on fossil fuels — from the same administration that has stalled the Keystone XL pipeline and pushed to wipe out the oil industry’s tax breaks, yet is also moving to open up much of the East Coast and the Arctic to offshore drilling.

“This study’s main finding flies in the face of fracking’s dangerous reality,” Rachel Richardson, director of Environment America’s Stop Drilling program, said in a statement. “The fact is, dirty drilling has caused documented, widespread water contamination across the country.”


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: drilling; energy; epa; fracking; naturalgas
Wow. I would never expect some site like POLITICO to report this.
1 posted on 06/05/2015 6:41:28 AM PDT by McGruff
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To: thackney

Ping.


2 posted on 06/05/2015 6:47:24 AM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: McGruff

}:-)


3 posted on 06/05/2015 6:50:56 AM PDT by left that other site (You shall know the Truth, and The Truth Shall Set You Free.)
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To: McGruff

Lefties / communists hate fracking because it creates jobs and affordable energy prices.


4 posted on 06/05/2015 6:57:27 AM PDT by cutty
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To: McGruff

I guess this means the “science is settled”?


5 posted on 06/05/2015 7:05:43 AM PDT by VanDeKoik
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To: VanDeKoik

It means that since pulling oil from the ground via fracking is still too expensive, why not legitimize it. The minute oil goes back up to 100 a barrel it will once again be bad for the environment and their last statement will go down the memory hole.


6 posted on 06/05/2015 7:09:33 AM PDT by EQAndyBuzz (Liawatha, because we need to beat a real commie, not a criminal posing as one.)
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To: McGruff

The EPA is not an unbiased source. I don’t give credibility to any of their studies, regardless of who benefits. Their studies find whatever the lobbyists what them to find.


7 posted on 06/05/2015 7:10:36 AM PDT by BuckeyeTexan (There are those that break and bend. I'm the other kind. ~Steve Earle)
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To: McGruff

So just when do the know-nothing jerk producers behind “Gasland” get called to account on the evening news for their gross manipulation and ignorance???

I’m guessing the Twelfth of Never...


8 posted on 06/05/2015 7:31:39 AM PDT by T-Bird45 (It feels like the seventies, and it shouldn't.)
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To: McGruff

one thing that is never reported on this matter is that methane penetration of water supplies is also a natural phenomena.

And how do you stop such a problem?

Drilling and fracking is often necessary to remove the pocket of methane naturally penetrating the water supply.

So in many instances it reduces water contamination like what is described in Gasland.


9 posted on 06/05/2015 7:43:11 AM PDT by lonestar67 (I remember when unemployment was 4.7 percent / Cruz 2016)
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To: BuckeyeTexan

head fake to take America’s mind off the other onerous shit they are proposing with their “rules”.


10 posted on 06/05/2015 7:54:28 AM PDT by telstar12.5 (...always bring gunships to a gun fight...)
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To: BuckeyeTexan

The EPA is not an unbiased source. I don’t give credibility to any of their studies, regardless of who benefits. Their studies find whatever the lobbyists what them to find.

Exactly right. The EPA has become just another highly politicized arm of the Obama administration. Laying off “fracking” is just another volley in their battle against the coal industry. Why? Because the United States is sitting on top of the largest coal reserves in the world. There are currently over 260 billion tons of known economically recoverable reserves within our boarders. At current rates of consumption that is enough to last nearly 300 years. That is the equivalent of nearly a trillion barrels of oil. Even with the massive amount of regulations... coal is still the most economical means of producing electricity in most parts of this country.

Not only that... when have you ever heard of a coal spill causing massive environmental problems? What happens to sea birds when a coal tanker sinks? What type of cleanup has to be done when a coal train derails? The primary club that environmentalists use on coal is the imaginary global warming issue. It has now been 18 years 6 months and counting since any global warming has occurred. Not to mention the quietest ten years on record for hurricane and major storm activity. Now “global warming” is being blamed for droughts in some areas and flooding in others but it is all hyped up nonsense with no substance.

Anyone who hates America wants to devalue our most abundant energy supply and destabilize our electric power grid which despite being largely constructed many decades ago is still the envy of the world. One of the best ways to bring this country down is to destroy our coal industry which is why Obama has been on the attack even before he became president. He promised to bankrupt anyone who tried to open a new coal fired power plant. (unless it was in China of course) The Chinese have completed an average of one new 1000MW coal fired power plant a week in the last fifteen years all while selling us expensive US government subsidized solar cells and windmill blades.


11 posted on 06/05/2015 8:30:19 AM PDT by fireman15 (Check your facts before making ignorant statements.)
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To: cutty
Lefties / communists hate fracking because it creates jobs and affordable energy prices.

Yep, becuase they want everyone living in Democratic Urban centers riding buses and paying off the HUGE MASSIVE public union defined benefit pension debt.

12 posted on 06/05/2015 8:42:17 AM PDT by 1Old Pro
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To: McGruff

Somebody’s gettin’ paid.


13 posted on 06/05/2015 10:01:37 AM PDT by Lazamataz (America has less than a year left.)
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To: fireman15

Nah, nice conspiracy theory (frack vs. coal), but it’s pretty clear Bork Obunga and his socioeconomic fascists hate BOTH oil and coal.

Both create a carbon footprint and both are an integral part of our formerly-capitalist economy. Obunga hates that.

They probably seriously couldn’t find evidence of fracking damage to water supplies and were peer-reviewed in their analysis so they couldn’t bend the truth any longer.


14 posted on 06/05/2015 10:20:27 AM PDT by AlanGreenSpam (Obama: The First 'American IDOL' President - sponsored by Chicago NeoCom Thugs)
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