Methane study, EPA debunk claims of water pollution, climate change from fracking

After a 16-month investigation, state regulators Monday said that natural gas fracking, contrary to highly publicized claims, isn’t to blame for high methane levels in three families’ drinking water in a northern Pennsylvania town.

For fracking proponents, it was another piece of good news. The oil and gas industry still was unwrapping the federal government’s acknowledgment that fracking isn’t nearly as harmful to the environment as it previously claimed. By dramatically lowering its methane emissions estimates from natural gas drilling sites, the Environmental Protection Agency has made it much more difficult to argue that the fracking boom is accelerating climate change.

The developments Monday in Franklin Forks, Pa., also will make it much more difficult to argue that the wildly successful drilling method is harmful to drinking water.

2013-04-30 10:45:54

Source: http://www.climatechangedispatch.com/11209-methane-study-epa-debunk-claims-of-water-pollution-climate-change-from-fracking.html