"New Study Finds High Levels of Arsenic in Groundwater Near Fracking Sites"

[applegrove]

New Study Finds High Levels of Arsenic in Groundwater Near Fracking Sites

by Theodoric Meyer at ProPublica

http://www.propublica.org/article/new-study-finds-high-levels-of-arsenic-in-groundwater-near-fracking-sites

"SNIP..............................


What did you find?

We found that there were actually quite a few examples of elevated constituents, such as heavy metals, the main players being arsenic, selenium and strontium. And we found each of those metals at levels that are above EPA’s maximum contaminate limit for drinking water.

These heavy metals do naturally occur in the groundwater in this region. But we have a historical dataset that points to the fact that the levels we found are sort of unusual and not natural. These really high levels differ from what the groundwater used to be like before fracking came in. And when you look at the location of the natural gas wells, you find that any time you have water wells that exceed the maximum contaminate limit for any of these heavy metals, they are within about three kilometers of a natural gas well. Once you get a private water well that’s not very close to a natural gas well, all of these heavy metals come down. But just because you’re close to a natural gas well does not mean you’re guaranteed to have elevated contaminate levels. We had quite a few samples that were very close to natural gas wells that had no problems with their water at all.

We also found a few samples that had measureable levels of methanol and ethanol, and these are two substances that don’t naturally occur in groundwater. They can actually be created by bacterial interactions underwater, but whenever methanol or ethanol occur in the environment, they’re very fleeting and transient. So for us to be able to actually randomly take a grab sample and detect detectable methanol and ethanol — that implies that there may be a continuous source of this.




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[MotherPetrie]

1. K&R

[limpyhobbler]

2. sounds unpleasant...nt

[OKIsItJustMe]

3. Read more here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112750136