Fracking not all bad
To the editor:
A recent letter lists these catastrophic results of “Fracking” for natural gas. “Drinking water ignited with a lighter, people unable to shower, wash clothes or are to drink. Clean water will have to be shipped in as is the case right now in the mountains upstate Pennsylvania and New York.”
No dates or actual locations of these dire events were given however, and after two hours research on the Internet I could not find any either. The New York Times reported recently that in one study of 200 private wells in the fracking regions of Pennsylvania, water quality was the same before and soon after drilling in all wells except one. These were wells not civic water supply.
Flowback of the water used in a potential problem but the time goes on. Since new regulations in 2011, Penn companies now recycle 90 percent of this briny water.
The web states “environmental activists CAUTION that the POTENTIAL dames of fracking have not been fully evaluated and MAY NOT be without risks” (my emphasis addded). Fracking began in the 1940s; at least a million wells have been fracked and the EPA is soon to undergo a thorough study of the effects.
The dissemination of unsubstantiated fear mongering statements is irresponsible. If the industry can safely frack the results for us, all would be tremendously beneficial. Electric generation now using coal and oil would convert with much cleaner emissions. Vehicles could be converted with the same result, and oil dependence on oil supply from unstable areas of the world would be drastically reduced, as would our balance of payments.
The writer tells us that “drilling for oil locally has drawn major objections for good reasons.” I assume those reasons to be to protect beaches and tourism. It is ironic that the BP oil spill did harm some Florida beaches and tourism due to it being forced far offshore into deep water instead of being allowed to drill in shallow water where spills are rarer and can be much easier and quickly capped.
Instead of holding hands along the sand some of us should extract our heads from it.
Peter Reid
Fort Myers Beach