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Oil companies fracking into drinking water sources, new research shows
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Los Angeles Times


Los Angeles Times, August 12, 2014
Posted: August 18th, 2014
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-fracking-groundwater-pav...

Energy companies are fracking for oil and gas at far shallower depths than widely believed, sometimes through underground sources of drinking water, according to research released [on August 12] by Stanford University scientists. Fracking involves high-pressure injection of millions of gallons of water mixed with sand and chemicals to crack geological formations and tap previously unreachable oil and gas reserves. Fracking fluids contain a host of chemicals, including known carcinogens and neurotoxins. Fears about possible water contamination and air pollution have fed resistance in communities around the country. Fracking into underground drinking water sources is not prohibited by the 2005 Energy Policy Act, which exempted the practice from key provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act. But the industry has long held that it does not hydraulically fracture into underground sources of drinking water because oil and gas deposits sit far deeper than aquifers. The study, however, found that energy companies used acid stimulation ... and hydraulic fracturing in the Wind River and Fort Union geological formations that make up the Pavillion gas field and that contain both natural gas and sources of drinking water. Thousands of gallons of diesel fuel and millions of gallons of fluids containing numerous inorganic and organic additives were injected directly into these two formations during hundreds of stimulation events, concluded Dominic DiGiulio and Robert Jackson of Stanfords School of Earth Sciences.

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