EPA Scientists Fact Check Fracking Study

Did the EPA misread its own fracking study? If you didn’t already mistrust the Environmental Protection Agency, how’s this for a story: In June, the EPA released a report on a fracking study that found no “wide, systematic impacts on drinking water.” Yet this week, the EPA’s Science Advisory Board came out swinging against the fracking study findings.

The EPA released a report on a fracking study that found no “wide, systematic impacts on drinking water,” findings now disputed by EPA’s own Science Advisory Board. The 31 members on the panel found that this conclusion is “ambiguous and requires clarification” and “inconsistent with the observations, data and levels of uncertainty” presented in the fracking study, according to Bloomberg News.

The study was congressionally mandated and took five years. During this time, the EPA “analyzed more than 3,500 sources of information, including previously published papers, state reports and the agency’s own scientific research,” according to Bloomberg.

Although the EPA is not required to change its stance because of its Science Advisory Board findings, it sure looks bad. Add this to reports that the EPA has shut down a fracking study in Dimock, PA as well as Wyoming and Texas, according to Environmental Action, and it looks even worse.

Now that fracking is linked to earthquakes in Oklahoma and even taking place in our national parks, is it time for the EPA to listen to its own scientists? I think so. Don’t you?