Finally, government officials are doing research on the effect of fracking. Pennsylvania is where the damage in this post's title occurred. It came from oil and gas development over the period from 2008 to 2012. Last year DEP's Oil and Gas Program issued a determination letter concluding that the high chemical levels in the water near Donegal, PA were caused by nearby fracking activity.
There are two primary causes of the damage - leaks of drilling fluids and other contaminants from well casings and waste water produced during fracking. According to Anthony Ingraffea, an engineering professor at Cornell University, "One in 20 wells leak immediately, and over time the percentage increases." Millions of gallons of waste water are produced during fracking.
It is not and open-and-shut case, however, as Pennsylvania has a history of mining and oil and gas drilling, which could have caused the problem or part of it. Whether fracking is responsible could be revealed by using tracing fluids to track fracking fluids and waste water throughout a region's water system. But the industry won't do it. Another complication was introduced in 2005 when the EPA expempted fracking from the Safe Drinking Water Act.
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