Does it Really Have to Be a Choice Between Jobs and Safe Drinking Water????

This post is just to share a link to a Bloomberg article about the controversy of job creation versus safe water in Ohio's fracking debate.

Image of men working courtesy of Duboix and MorgueFile.

Water or Jobs?

Ohio Fracking Foes Push Water Safety, Republicans Tout Jobs discusses the contaminated water from fracked wells, earthquakes, and also cited numbers for potential jobs from fracking ranging from 65,800 up to 200,000 jobs.

So, you're here, interested enough to read this blog.

• What do you think?
• Is it really just a choice between safe drinking water and jobs?
• Is there more to consider?
• Why can't we have both jobs and safe environmental practices?
• What questions do you have?

Feel free to respond in the comments section below, or pop over to the forum and say whatever you feel like saying about this practice. Even if you are pro-fracking, your right to express your opinions will be considered and respected, so if anyone wants to say anything here, now is your chance.

Ohio Department of Natural Resources Recommendations for Well Water Testing Before Gas and Oil Drilling

I apologize for this post's long title. I couldn't decide which part should be left out to make it shorter.

ODNR has released information for concerned Ohio residents regarding the proper procedure for testing well water.

Basically, they ask residents to foot the bill to have their water tested before drilling begins (if they are lucky enough to have advance notice of drilling or fracking brine dumping in their area), only by OEPA certified water testing labs the ODNR approves, and then pay again after drilling or dumping to have that same lab test the well water again.

Here is why it has to be labs they specify (direct quote from ODNR document)... "Samples should be submitted to an Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (Ohio EPA) certified drinking water laboratory. The laboratory should be certified for each chemical parameter to be tested. Without attention to these details, water analyses will be of little or no value in an oil and gas water contamination investigation or a legal proceeding."

I'm not arguing the wisdom of having your water tested before and after drilling or dumping, assuming you are forewarned. I just think it's a little disappointing that the very agencies charged with protecting the public good are telling residents not only, that they are on their own as far as water testing, but also if the residents don't send their cash to the lab the governmental agencies choose they will have very little legal recourse after their water has been contaminated.

Anyway, I invite you to check out the document, and, if your interpretation of the document varies from my own interpretation, you are welcome to stop back and leave a comment voicing your thoughts on the document, or anything about this topic.

Questionable Pro-Fracking Post

I just came across this site that says there are 80,000 fracked wells in Ohio with zero groundwater contamination.

Okay, I actually know about the number of fracked wells in Ohio because I came across numbers in the course of my research. I do not question the amount. It has been common practice to frack OIL wells in Ohio for, well, a few decades, now.

The part this other site's glowing report about the awesomeness and safety of fracking does not explain to the reader is, while some of the same hazardous chemicals are used in both oil well and gas well fracking, (by the way, they have been dumping this toxic stuff on roadways since the early 1980's to keep down dust in summer and in winter to thaw ice - want to take an educated guess at why cancer, autism, and asthma are on the rise since around that time?) some of the more explosive ones, known for causing ground to fracture are used only in natural gas drilling.

Also, saying there has been zero groundwater contamination is not completely true. Problems have just been poorly documented. Many of these wells broke through the water table when drilled, causing drinking water to become undrinkable.

So, in addition to potential problems in Ohio when natural gas drilling proceeds, the dumping of fracking brine into uncontained abandoned oil wells poses the threat of further contamination of drinking water from NG brine chemicals.