Hydrofracking sure to contaminate water

Hydrofracking sure to contaminate water by Paul Hetzler, environmental engineering technician with NYSDEC, December 13, 2011, Watertown Daily Times
There’s no such thing as a perfect well seal. Occasionally sooner, often later, well seals can and do fail, period. No confining layer is completely competent; all geologic strata leak to some extent. The fact that a less-transmissive layer lies between the drill zone and a well does not protect the well from contamination. A drinking water well is never in “solid” rock. If it were, it would be a dry hole in the ground. As water moves through joints, fissures and bedding planes into a well, so do contaminants. In fractured media such as shale, water follows preferential pathways, moving fast and far, miles per week in some cases. … Chemicals injected into the aquifer will persist for many lifetimes. When contamination occurs—and it will occur— we will all pay for it, regardless of where we live.

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