Frack Fluids Can Endanger Water: Study

Frack Fluids Can Endanger Water: Study by Jim Efstathiou Jr., May 03, 2012, Bloomberg News
Chemically treated drilling fluid can migrate through thousands of feet of rock and endanger water supplies, said a hydrologist whose research calls into question the safety of hydraulic fracturing for natural gas. The fluids can migrate faster that previously thought, Tom Myers, a Reno, Nevada, researcher, said yesterday. His study, published in the online journal Ground Water on April 17, says fluids can reach shallow drinking-water aquifers in as little as three years. “If contaminants reach natural fractures under pressure, the upward flow has the potential to be enhanced greatly,” Myers, an independent consultant who has worked for conservation groups and governments, said. “It can flow upward if there’s a pathway and unless it’s completely impermeable, there’s always a pathway. It’s just a question of how long it takes.” … The Myers study bolsters the group’s claim that fracking isn’t safe for New York state, home to unfiltered aquifers that provide water to New York City and Syracuse. “We know less about what’s underground than we know what’s at the bottom of the deepest oceans,” Adams said in an interview. “That blanket statement that there’s this impermeable wall that will keep these chemicals down there is false and it changes everything.”