Some states confirm water pollution from drilling - Yahoo News
Ok, folks, just so ya'll remember, I was a newspaper journalist for 30-some-odd years, so I kinda know from what I speak.
With that said, I going to take the AP/Yahoo news story apart.
First the headline sucks, because it really hypes something that is not supported by the story. By that I mean, as I read the story I was struck by the experts repeatedly pointing out that fracking (a practice going back to at least into the 1980s in Texas) by oil well drillers - not including those that drill not using fracking (but then what is drilling mud but essentially a fracturing fluid) - is responsible for a tiny slice of the actually pollution from the complaints that are filed in the four states the story references.
That is like writing a headline that says: Some states confirm eating causes asphyxiation deaths. Taken alone, it would make you wonder about whether it is safe to eat or not, and then question the premise. The truth be know that you can eat the wrong food, vomit and then asphyxiate yourself ... especially if you are drunk or under the influence of some intoxicating substance (like drugs - for us old folks, that is how the singer Cass Elliot died way back when, as well a number of inebriated persons, famous or not).
You really have to reach into the story to realize that the number of confirmed cases of water pollution actually are a very small portion of the number of complaints over the last decade and the vast majority of the pollutants found have nothing to do with drilling, fracking, or anything the oil companies but actually naturally occurring contamination. And in those few cases, the oil drillers have agreed to pay substantial settlements to the affected parties.
The problem with most stories like this is that they fail to help people understand that no matter where we live, our water supply most likely is contaminated by something. In fact, public water suppliers publicly admit it every year (at least everywhere I have lived in the US) in a publication that they are required to send to their customers that charts and graphs all the major contaminants detected during routine testing they are required by law to do practically daily. Most people just throw these bill inserts away, but they are there.
People with their own wells, rarely go to the trouble to test their water, but - again from my experience covering this issue - when they do they are shocked to find it often is loaded with "natural contaminants" like methane, radon, various and sundry metals, bacteria and other stuff that can make you sick ... and with nary an oil well or even and underground pipeline to blame.
The other thing about fracking that they fail to point out is that a large chunk of the oil wells these days are being drilled to a depth of near a mile-and-half to two miles. Ground water usually hit impermeable rock at a little more than half a mile and any water below that layer usually isn't liquid but gaseous (essentially steam) because as you go deeper it keeps getting hotter and hotter (see volcanoes).
So, rather than the big bad oil companies creating some sore of environmental catastrophe, while at the same time pushing the US toward energy independence and giving a humongous much-needed boost to the American economy, maybe those oil prospectors are actually doing us some good.
Now, I am not going to digress into the debate over hydrocarbon fuels, because - for the foreseeable future, in my estimation - that issue is moot. None of the alternatives are ready for prime time and until they are and some entrepreneur can pull a Henry Ford with the technology, hydrocarbon fuels will have to do until something better comes along.
Which is not to say the alternatives should stop development; nor should those people making products that use hydrocarbons stop trying to find more efficient ways to use it with cleaner results.
To scare people into opposing what works now based on insufficient evidence does everyone a disservice.
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