The Environmental Protection Agency has decreed the natural-gas producing hydraulic fracturing process, otherwise known as “fracking,” has no detrimental effect on ground water, despite documented evidence to the contrary.
After years of criticism, the EPA on Thursday released the conclusion of its half-decade long study into fracking and its “Potential Impact on Drinking Water Resources,” announcing they found no evidence to suggest widespread environmental damage.
While describing various “above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources,” the report ultimately states:
“We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States.”
Examples of flammable tap water, such as those below found with a quick Youtube search, are only “specific instances,” the EPA claims, and are not indicative of a wider systemic issue.
From the documentary Gasland:
Via the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition
Via RT News
Shelly Perdue, of Granbury, Texas, lives 600 feet from a fracking site.
Countless more examples of this same phenomenon have been documented in places like North Dakota, Colorado, New York, Ohio and other regions where gas drilling occurs.
The 2010 documentary film Gasland also documented a rise in cancer rates, birth defects and central nervous system issues in people who consumed contaminated water polluted by nearby fracking sites.
Which substances are exactly responsible for the cancers is indeterminable, since the chemicals and fluids used during fracking are often protected trade secrets.
The EPA’s bizarre declaration, in the face of incontrovertible evidence, is comparable to the final scenes out of Orwell’s 1984, in which Winston must proclaim he sees five fingers, instead of the four held up by the menacing O’Brien.
The EPA has in the past been blamed for misleading the public on air quality safety in the days following 9/11, which many suspect led to a rise in cancer rates amongst first responders and other New York residents.
A week after the attack, as asbestos-contaminated dust still lingered in the Manhattan air and piles of debris lay scattered in the street, EPA Commissioner Christie Whitman under the direction of the Bush White House declared to the public that the air was “safe” to breathe.
The EPA’s track record of downplaying the risks associated with an assortment of chemical substances, to the health detriment of thousands, should make everyone apprehensive of their latest frack water claims.
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