A recent federal study by the Department of Energy and a private laboratory, the National Energy Technology Laboratory, found that fracking fluids did not seep into drinking water as environmentalists have been howling about for the past few years. The Denver Post took to its editorial page to correct the lies that the green lobby has been spreading in order to further their own agenda:
“What The Associated Press is calling a “landmark federal study” by the Department of Energy monitored fracking fluids for a year that were injected deep underground in wells in western Pennsylvania. By tagging the fracking fluid with ‘unique markers,’ federal scientists could locate them if they migrated into groundwater.
They didn’t.
Indeed, no trace of the fluid was detected in a monitoring zone that was still a mile below drinking water.”
“Good clean water is indeed a necessity for good local beer. And we’re happy we enjoy plenty of both in Colorado, with little likelihood of either being compromised by the continued production of oil and gas.”
What do the report's authors say? "We are still in the early stages of collecting, analyzing and validating data from this site. While nothing of concern has been found thus far, the results are far too preliminary to make any firm claims," states NETL. "We expect a final report on the results by the end of the calendar year."
The bad news is that as a resident of the People's Republic of Boulder I know that the opponents of fracking are not motivated by reason and will not listen to any scientific opinion other than their own. You could try to tell them that natural gas burns 43% cleaner than coal and does not require massive government subsidies like renewables. You could even mention that U.S. CO2 emissions have declined by 12% over the past five years and have fallen to 1996 levels. However, it would all be in vain as too many liberals have convinced themselves (through their own network of biased blogs, think tanks, and pundits) that we must tax ourselves to death and destroy our economy to support a regime of 100% renewable energy or else the world will surely end.