• Spills during the handling of hydraulic fracturing fluids and chemicals or produced water that result in large volumes or high concentrations of chemicals reaching groundwater resources;
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids into wells with inadequate mechanical integrity, allowing gases or liquids to move to groundwater resources;
• Injection of hydraulic fracturing fluids directly into groundwater resources;
• Discharge of inadequately treated hydraulic fracturing wastewater to surface water; and
• Disposal or storage of hydraulic fracturing wastewater in unlined pits, resulting in contamination ofgroundwater resource
https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-12/documents/hf...
Contrast this to the evidence for coal contaminating water supplies with mercury. Fracking, despite its reputation and scary name, is safe. Like, flying airplanes safe.
Hammond, P. A., Wen, T., Brantley, S. L., & Engelder, T. (2020). Gas well integrity and methane migration: evaluation of published evidence during shale-gas development in the USA. Hydrogeology Journal, 28(4), 1481-1502.
There are better criticisms of fracking like the higher rates of disease around well sites, and improper dumping of waste.
Fracking leaks methanol, salts and other compounds into ground water. Operations often contaminate water from leaky pits with diesel and other compounds.
Coal is probably the nastiest fuel by any measure. But that isn’t to say that fracking operations are not problematic, and since industry has fought tooth and nail to prevent meaningful, peer reviewed study of the issue, it’s absurd to compare to a well understood, well measured thing like air safety.
No, the evidence from peer reviewed studies show that this does not occur often. You are presenting this as though fracking leads to ground water contamination. That is simply not the case. Agriculture and urban activities are much bigger sources of contamination.
This recent review says: “ A perceived risk, that fracking chemicals may migrate from the 0.5- to 3-km depth of injection to upper shallow aquifers used for water supply, is not considered to be significant (90, 91). The lack of baseline data on aquifer conditions is cited as a major limitation to the detection and attribution of the impacts (90–92). Wide variations in methane concentrations in groundwater are noted in areas with intensive gas production as well as in areas with limited activity.” https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...
But very open to additional evidence.
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A spot check shows item 15 in the list, published 2014, is based on work from 2011-12 and the abstract concludes with:
> This study provides a baseline of water-quality conditions in the Monongahela River Basin in West Virginia during the early phases of development of the Marcellus Shale gas field. Although not all inclusive, the results of this study provide a set of reliable water-quality data against which future data sets can be compared and the effects of shale-gas development may be determined.
That is to say, this is a baseline measurement from the start of exploration, not a demonstration that fracking goes not contaminate groundwater.
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The MIT report listed as item 26 on the list does say the process is mostly safe, which I respect, but also page 39 lists counts of incidents over a four or five year period, including 20 incidents of "groundwater contamination by natural gas or drilling fluid". So it's not like problems do not happen.
https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-envir...
PFAS stay in the environment and are harmful to humans.