The Haynesville shale is a similar formation with gas trapped in shale formations. Drilling has been going on there for a few years with high hopes but the trapped gas depletes too fast for the wells to produce enough to cover the cost of drilling. Haynesville wasn’t mentioned in the article. I brought it up.
Many of these unconventoional reservoirs will not be produced without the frac job, and the apparent goal is to stop that, claiming danger to fresh water aquifers.
With the Bakken, the aquifers are usually somewhere on the order of 9500 ft. above the casing shoe, and in no danger of contamination by the frac.