Kudo’s to the Daily Sentinel for objectively editorializing on the potential public health and environmental risks posed by expanding oil and gas development – and by hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in particular (“New data aids industry in latest fracking fight”). The industry long-insisted that “fracking is safe” . . . period. It now contends merely that “fracking is safe as long as appropriate protections are in place”. Skeptics logically ask: “What are those ‘appropriate protections’?” and “Why – then – is fracking exempt from the ‘appropriate protections’ codified in the Safe Drinking Water and Clean Water Acts”? While Governor Hickenlooper (and others) have “demonstrated” the purported safety of all fracking fluids by drinking gulps of benign non-toxic (“green”) formulas used only offshore, he didn’t swallow any toxic fracking fluids – much less the cocktail of toxins and diesel fuel -- actually used in Colorado. Therefore, environmentalists, “neighbors”, and medical professionals continue to justifiably doubt the credibility of such assertions. Revealingly, one “unnamed drilling company” has now confirmed the feasibility of what environmentalists and water quality experts have suggested for years – adding tracer chemicals to fracking fluids to resolve doubts about the source of any contamination. Even if groundwater contamination occurs less frequently than “alarmists” believe, and even if – statistically -- “fracking is safe when properly conducted”, localized impacts of accidental contamination and/or improperly conducted “fracking” are no less devastating to those whose personal or public health and/or environment is/are affected. Moreover, the association of deep injection wells with minor earthquakes increases the likelihood that toxic fracking fluids will eventually migrate upward into aquifers -- which even miniscule amounts of “fracking” chemicals can permanently taint. Finally, because drilling/fracking technologies make oil/natural gas deposits accessible even more remotely, there is less reason to deny wary communities the right to decide what tradeoffs between public/environmental health and profit are locally acceptable. Bill Hugenberg
Posted on: Sun, 28 Jul 2013 19:40:21 +0000
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