Despite protestations from the Left, North Carolina is poised to reap the jobs, wealth creation, and new revenue that is likely to come when the state begins using hydraulic fracturing — fracking to find shale oil deposits federal officials believe is under the ground in parts of our state. JLF’s Jon Sanders lays out the facts about fracking in this edition of his newsletter.
A 2004 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) of hydraulic fracturing of coalbed methane wells found no incident of contamination of drinking water wells from hydraulic fracturing fluid injection. In 2009 state regulators in all member states of the Interstate Oil & Gas Compact Commission stated that they had found no cases where hydraulic fracturing had caused drinking water to be contaminated. Numerous studies have found no link between hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination.
In May 2011, EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson, testifying under oath before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, stated she was “not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water.”
The U.S. Department of Energy has been conducting a comprehensive, long-term study of hydraulic fracturing in western Pennsylvania. After a year of monitoring, researchers released preliminary findings in July 2013, announcing they had found no evidence of hydraulic fracturing contaminating groundwater.
You can follow Jon’s analysis of fracking and other regulatory issues through his weekly newsletter — available for free here.
