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Topic: Climate & Pollution     Department: Letters

Prove it already

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The EPA cannot prove communication between oil and gas wells and potable water sources (HCN, 6/27/11).  I discussed your fracking story with a friend who is a petroleum chemical engineer, and he believes only one well in a thousand may have communication. He believes poor cement jobs on the casing are more the culprit than fracking.  

I think this issue needs to be proven one way or another. I do not believe the oil companies have any desire to waste money or pollute drinking water.  If fracking is affecting potable water sources, the process can be modified so that it does not. The solution is not to ban fracking, but to modify the process to keep it safe.  As technology advances, so must safety parameters.

P. David Kennedy
Littleton, Colorado

Ajay & Beverley Sutton
Ajay & Beverley Sutton Subscriber
Aug 05, 2011 01:32 PM
Surely the onus should be on the oil companies to prove that their technology is safe. The word of an oil company engineer, no matter how well qualified or well intentioned, does not amount to much. Relying on an underfunded government agency to prove cause and effect, while the fracking process continues unabated, is illogical. Further development at wells that have not started the chemical injection process needs to be halted until the oil companies either improve their safety measures or prove conclusively that fracking - whether by bad design or low quality seals - isn't responsible for the environmental damage ascribed to it. Destroying people's homes and lives in the name of corporate profit is unacceptable.

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