If fracking is poisoning your water, it’s really none of your business:
Officially, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said last year that the drinking water in Dimock, Pennsylvania, was not contaminated by natural gas extraction involving hydraulic fracturing (fracking). However, an internal EPA document obtained by the media contradicts this assertion, raising questions over why officials declared the water was safe to drink.
Residents of Dimock had complained for years that nearby gas drilling had polluted their wells. These complaints prompted the EPA’s mid-Atlantic field office to test the water for 64 homes.
Agency leaders in Washington later announced that nearly all of the samples came out clean.
But an EPA PowerPoint presentation obtained by the Tribune/Los Angeles Times Washington Bureau reveals that EPA on-site staff members informed its Washington headquarters that several wells had been contaminated with methane, manganese and arsenic, and that gas drilling was the likely culprit. The determination was based on studies conducted over the course of a four- to five-year period at the site.
The document concluded that “methane and other gases released during drilling (including air from the drilling) apparently cause significant damage to the water quality.” The presentation also stated that “methane is at significantly higher concentrations in the aquifers after gas drilling and perhaps as a result of fracking (hydraulic fracturing) and other gas well work.”
The Capitalists will keep killing us off to maintain proper order. A smaller population spending more money is the same thing as a larger population spending less money. Profit is profit, especially when you can skrink the population at will.
Hey wait, I thought political intervention in science ended with the Bush Administration. “Free” Speech in action. Swamp water laced with heavy metals is potable according to the EPA. Next up cigarettes cure COPD.