Despite a recent federal report concluding fracking doesn’t adversely affect drinking water, the risks posed by fracking are clear.
Oil and gas lobbies quickly looked to the Environmental Protection Agency’s new report on fracking safety to defend their absurd claims that fracking regulations aren’t necessary. Actually, the EPA’s limited report says nothing about the biggest danger of fracking: man-made earthquakes. It shouldn’t be read as a vindication of the practice, and certainly not as the last word on the dangers of fracking.
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The report found that fracking, a method of releasing oil and natural gas by injecting water and chemicals deep into the Earth’s surface, has not shown any widespread effects on the quality of drinking water resources. But it notes that chemicals used in fracking have contaminated water supplies in some specific cases, and that it runs the risk of doing so again. The report also lacks data from long-term studies, which are critical to assessing environmental impacts.
More important, though, is what the EPA report leaves out. Mounting evidence suggests that fracking is responsible for dramatic increases in earthquakes all over the country, including in Ohio. The Seismological Society of America found this year that fracking was responsible for dozens of earthquakes near Youngstown in 2011.
Before the fracking boom of the last few decades, there were about 20 major earthquakes per year in the eastern and central United States. Between 2009 and 2013, there were five times that many. Last year, there were more than 650.
A few states have banned fracking in response to these risks. Even Oklahoma’s government, which has long denied the dangers of fracking because of the influence of the energy industry there, recently acknowledged fracking’s link to earthquakes.
The federal government also acknowledges the role of fracking in creating earthquakes, but it has limited authority to regulate the practice. Regulators announced strict new rules governing fracking this year, but they only apply to federal land, which represents a small fraction of land affected by fracking.
That puts the burden on state and local governments to regulate the practice effectively. But industry-friendly officials in energy-rich states have mostly shirked that responsibility, and trusted the industry to regulate itself.
Gov. John Kasich claims that Ohio has some of the strongest fracking regulations in the country, yet the state lags behind others in testing fracking wastewater for contaminants.
Some Ohio communities have been blocked by state officials from banning — or even regulating — fracking, and the Ohio Supreme Court this year upheld the state’s right to do so.
To his credit, the governor previously has prevented fracking from expanding into public land. But state lawmakers are again seeking to open up public land to fracking, and Mr. Kasich has remained silent on the issue.
For now, environmental advocates have not made the case for a full ban on fracking. Oil and gas exploration offers the United States significant economic benefits and greater independence from the increasingly volatile Middle East.
But there’s no doubt that fracking comes with formidable risks that must be mitigated with common-sense rules, such as limiting the practice near fault lines. Whatever the short-term advantages of fracking, they must not come at the price of Ohioans’ health and safety.
First Published June 13, 2015, 4:00 a.m.
