I'm glad they wrote about this, but it's certainly not breaking news or anything. Back in 2016, EPA released a report [1] that was years in the making, which co

I'm glad they wrote about this, but it's certainly not breaking news or anything. Back in 2016, EPA released a report [1] that was years in the making, which covered the history, science, and effects of hydraulic fracturing in the U.S. The executive summary [2] says that produced water can contain "naturally-occurring organic compounds, including benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes (BTEX); and oil and grease; radioactive materials, including radium; and hydraulic fracturing chemicals and their chemical transformation products." It also discusses spills from evaporation ponds (e.g., a 2.9 million gallon spill in North Dakota in 2015 that flowed into Blacktail Creek), as well as exacerbation of local droughts due to groundwater withdrawal for fracking. Unfortunately, as happens these days, when the draft report was released in 2015, conservative news outlets [3][4][5][6][7] grabbed hold of a single statement in the executive summary reflecting the usual statements of uncertainty in any scientific report, and they used that to imply there was no evidence of any consequences of hydrofracking on the environment or human health. The draft report's statement that they took hold of was: "We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States". However, the very next paragraph explains "This finding could reflect a rarity of effects on drinking water resources, but may also be due to other limiting factors. These factors include: insufficient pre- and post-fracturing data on the quality of drinking water resources; the paucity of long-term systematic studies; the presence of other sources of contamination precluding a definitive link between hydraulic fracturing activities and an impact; and the inaccessibility of some information on hydraulic fracturing activities and potential impacts." Even in 2016, when the final report was released, a WSJ article [8] insisted EPA had "political scientists" who rewrote the report to cast doubt on the safety of hydraulic fracturing. (The rewritten statement was: "However, significant data gaps and uncertainties in the available data prevented us from calculating or estimating the national frequency of impacts on drinking water resources from activities in the hydraulic fracturing water cycle. The data gaps and uncertainties described in this report also precluded a full characterization of the severity of impacts."). [1] https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332990 https://cfpub.epa.gov/ncea/hfstudy/recordisplay.cfm?deid=332... [2] http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=530285 http://ofmpub.epa.gov/eims/eimscomm.getfile?p_download_id=53... [3] https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-has-had-no-widespread-impact-on-drinking-water-epa-finds-1433433850 https://www.wsj.com/articles/fracking-has-had-no-widespread-... [4] https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/report-epa-finds-no-widespread-water-pollution-fracking-18748 https://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/report-epa-finds-... [5] https://www.txoga.org/eid-long-awaited-epa-study-finds-fracking-has-not-led-to-widespread-water-contamination/ https://www.txoga.org/eid-long-awaited-epa-study-finds-frack... [6] https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/2015/06/epa-theres-no-evidence-fracking-has-led-to.html https://www.bizjournals.com/bizjournals/washingtonbureau/201... [7] https://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-no-widespread-affects-water/ https://www.texastribune.org/2015/06/04/epa-fracking-no-wide... [8] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-science-deniers-1482099327 https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-epas-science-deniers-148209...