everybody around the world does this, we do it too

it's called social engineering, and it's been around for 10,000 years

FloydA: Anyone know what America's biggest export is?

Obesity. And whining.

A big part of the problem is that oil and gas companies are their own worst enemy. Their track record on the environment and safety is awful. And for years they bankrolled and supported all sorts of climate-change denialism. They still are if you count the Koch brothers as part of the group.

So, when they say hydraulic fracturing isn't a problem, it's really hard to believe them.

But they're almost certainly right for once.

The fractures remain at depth, even the longest ones growing less than 600 m upwards. For an operation that remains more than 1 km at depth (0.6 miles), the risk of those fractures reaching groundwater and contaminating is extremely remote. PDF Link

The Duke study often referred to as demonstrating that hydraulically fracturing contaminated groundwater actually did not such thing. The lack of chemicals in the groundwater indicated that it was likely from shoddy well casing as described by the study's authors. Link But that study didn't do a before and after test, only after the well had been fracked, so there was no way to determine if the gas was pre-existing in the water wells or not. Other scientists have shown that, in Pennsylvania, about 20% of water wells have pre-existing methane and water quality is typically crap before any gas wells are ever drilled nearby. PDF Link In some areas of Pennsylvania, 60% to 80% of water wells are already contaminated by naturally occurring natural gas (so, don't have the link handy).

The EPA draft study in Pavillion, Wyoming (and to this point it's still a draft and not a final document) essentially found numerous problems with how wells were drilled and fracked out there. There are over 30 unreclaimed, unlined surface pits that had one contained drilling/fracking/produced water, always a hazard. The well casing in many of the gas wells was pathetic. And they found that, maybe, we shouldn't be fracking to extract natural gas out of the same formations some people are getting their groundwater from. Link

Having said this, there are some significant methodological problems with this study (for example, some of the EPA's test wells have very high levels of potassium and even the deepest residential water wells didn't, suggesting the EPA may have contaminated their test wells). Since then, the EPA has agreed to go back and do further testing. And this is also Wyoming, which has some really crappy regulations (though have gotten better -- but crap is still crap).

Anyways, there's a lot of blame being thrown around. And things, as always, are complicated and don't fit in the sound-bite driven media, which always makes things difficult to discuss when they're just looking for some outrage in the audience. I just worry that, with all the focus on fracking, other more important stuff is going to be overlooked, like making sure casing standards are adequate, or maybe forcing companies to use steel tanks to hold produced fluids at all times rather than surface pits, which have always been problematic.

so this recently been news in Canada too. Environmental groups are being accused of being funded by "foreign" interests. The latest conservative budget actually makes these groups and only these groups report on their funding sources.

ksetany: so this recently been news in Canada too. Environmental groups are being accused of being funded by "foreign" interests. The latest conservative budget actually makes these groups and only these groups report on their funding sources.

All charities are already required to report foreign funding. However, the Tories are using the small amounts of foreign philanthropy that some charities receive to discredit them, particularly the environmental groups. Basically, the Sierra Club.

The bigger problem is that the Tories are trying to strip charities of their charitable status if they spend more than 10% of their time on "political activity".

"Conservatives", when did you stop wanting to protect what we have (the environment)?

Alternative energies, and science, are good things. They help preserve the good things we have and allow us to hold onto them. You should embrace them.

That is all.

Foreign countries with a financial stake in seeing the US oil and gas industries fail ... this IS the free market at work, isn't it?

Smackledorfer: "Conservatives", when did you stop wanting to protect what we have (the environment)?

Alternative energies, and science, are good things. They help preserve the good things we have and allow us to hold onto them. You should embrace them.

That is all.

You don't understand. Those damn hippie commie liberals are for those things. There's obviously nothing good about them. Even if there were, a true conservative should still oppose them out of spite.

cameroncrazy1984: beer4breakfast: What is the proposed mechanism that fracking, which is done at least a mile underneath any aquifer, causes methane leakage into drinking water

Because there is no way methan can travel a mile?

Methans can make the Kessel run in under 12 parsecs when the wind is right.

thamike: Gulper Eel: FloydA: Anyone know what America's biggest export is?

Bullshiat.

How the f*ck do you misspell "television>"

How the f*ck do you misspell a question mark?

Never have so many trolled so hard, for so few....

Corporations have all the money and power and yet are somehow still the victims of penniless hippies.