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Considering those professors are Americans i have to wonder what relationship they have to their (home)country when they say fracking is harmless to groundwater

by Smrchy 14y ago

Considering those professors are Americans i have to wonder what relationship they have to their (home)country when they say fracking is harmless to groundwater. Don't these people have children, grand children? Is money really so important?

smarsh 14y ago
If we assume that the researchers in question are in fact intentionally misleading and misrepresenting the facts then yes, that is alarming. But what does that have to do with being American? Pocketing money from industry at the expense of public health and safety would be disappointing given any nationality.
- johnpmayer 14y ago
  He means as opposed to having foreign researchers putting out the claims, who could conceivable have less of an ethics barrier, since it's "not their land". Still agree with you though - pretty shameful if true.
  - deleted 14y ago
    [deleted]
sageikosa 14y ago
I would imagine if they are scientists, they assert fracking is harmless due to knowledge and research. If something is injected at a depth below the water table, and is at least as dense or denser than water, it does not move upward against the pull of gravity unless acted upon by an outside force. Their nationality has nothing to do with that. My father the (retired) hydro-geologist (and former professor) is not alarmed by fracking; and to the best of my knowledge he hasn't taken big oil and gas money (or he's been holding out on me). He never did big research projects, although he did also consult for a civil engineering firm analyzing and remediating super-fund sites and drilling contamination-free water wells for various communities across the north-eastern US. Oil and gas companies give/grant/donate money to universities for a variety of reasons, not least of which is to improve the talent pool for recruitment. And if you want to commission a study, you go to where the experts are.
- CWuestefeld 14y ago
  No way did this comment deserve a downvote. It's at least as thoughtful as the comment it replied to. This would appear to be downvoting as "I don't like your opinion", as opposed to "you're not adding any value to the conversation". Addressing the concern of the actual article: The fact is that you can't escape from having researchers having some kind of tie to their subject matter, on one side of an issue or another. The reason that people have chosen a given area of research is that they've got some kind of interest in it -- for or against. There's really no way around this, and so we rely on openness of results, and the peer review process to police research. The same problem looms in governmental regulation, where regulatory capture [1] is an unavoidable problem. If you want someone to write regulations who actually knows what the heck they're doing, you're going to have to go with someone who got experience from somewhere, which is more than likely from working in the industry. The problem here, of course, is that there is no openness nor peer review in regulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
  - sageikosa 14y ago
    I'll add a couple of things I didn't originally. First, the operations around fracking do involve risk and the potential for contamination, the same way as drilling any other hole (sealed or unsealed) in the ground, through a water table; and there are already numerous regulations and licenses (and rights issues) involved with these, but typically the fracking injection process itself is fairly well insulated from causing widespread surface damage. Lode-changing stresses on pre-existing faults should probably be the most pressing area of reasearch, and as always, deliberate malfeasance via oversight and enforcement of existing clean-air and water laws is important regardless of the science behind the fracking operation itself.
    - CWuestefeld 14y ago
      As the owner of a largish block of land on top of the Marcellus shale, I've got an interest in this, and I've been watching the discussion carefully. The two biggest areas of concern that I've heard are (1) the possibility of releasing methane into drinking water sources; and (2) the manner in which the used water and fracking fluid will be disposed of. As you note, #1 isn't specifically a fracking thing, but related to any deep, powerful disturbance of the ground. From what I've read, #2 is generally OK, but marred by occasional malfeasance. (It's difficult to write regulations to deal with people who are, by definition, breaking the regulations.) But I've also read that there are newer methods of fracking being tried, that don't need the same sorts of chemicals, or quantities.

by Smrchy 14y ago

smarsh 14y ago

If we assume that the researchers in question are in fact intentionally misleading and misrepresenting the facts then yes, that is alarming. But what does that have to do with being American? Pocketing money from industry at the expense of public health and safety would be disappointing given any nationality.

johnpmayer 14y ago
He means as opposed to having foreign researchers putting out the claims, who could conceivable have less of an ethics barrier, since it's "not their land". Still agree with you though - pretty shameful if true.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

sageikosa 14y ago

I would imagine if they are scientists, they assert fracking is harmless due to knowledge and research. If something is injected at a depth below the water table, and is at least as dense or denser than water, it does not move upward against the pull of gravity unless acted upon by an outside force. Their nationality has nothing to do with that. My father the (retired) hydro-geologist (and former professor) is not alarmed by fracking; and to the best of my knowledge he hasn't taken big oil and gas money (or he's been holding out on me). He never did big research projects, although he did also consult for a civil engineering firm analyzing and remediating super-fund sites and drilling contamination-free water wells for various communities across the north-eastern US. Oil and gas companies give/grant/donate money to universities for a variety of reasons, not least of which is to improve the talent pool for recruitment. And if you want to commission a study, you go to where the experts are.

CWuestefeld 14y ago
No way did this comment deserve a downvote. It's at least as thoughtful as the comment it replied to. This would appear to be downvoting as "I don't like your opinion", as opposed to "you're not adding any value to the conversation". Addressing the concern of the actual article: The fact is that you can't escape from having researchers having some kind of tie to their subject matter, on one side of an issue or another. The reason that people have chosen a given area of research is that they've got some kind of interest in it -- for or against. There's really no way around this, and so we rely on openness of results, and the peer review process to police research. The same problem looms in governmental regulation, where regulatory capture [1] is an unavoidable problem. If you want someone to write regulations who actually knows what the heck they're doing, you're going to have to go with someone who got experience from somewhere, which is more than likely from working in the industry. The problem here, of course, is that there is no openness nor peer review in regulation. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- sageikosa 14y ago
  I'll add a couple of things I didn't originally. First, the operations around fracking do involve risk and the potential for contamination, the same way as drilling any other hole (sealed or unsealed) in the ground, through a water table; and there are already numerous regulations and licenses (and rights issues) involved with these, but typically the fracking injection process itself is fairly well insulated from causing widespread surface damage. Lode-changing stresses on pre-existing faults should probably be the most pressing area of reasearch, and as always, deliberate malfeasance via oversight and enforcement of existing clean-air and water laws is important regardless of the science behind the fracking operation itself.
  - CWuestefeld 14y ago
    As the owner of a largish block of land on top of the Marcellus shale, I've got an interest in this, and I've been watching the discussion carefully. The two biggest areas of concern that I've heard are (1) the possibility of releasing methane into drinking water sources; and (2) the manner in which the used water and fracking fluid will be disposed of. As you note, #1 isn't specifically a fracking thing, but related to any deep, powerful disturbance of the ground. From what I've read, #2 is generally OK, but marred by occasional malfeasance. (It's difficult to write regulations to deal with people who are, by definition, breaking the regulations.) But I've also read that there are newer methods of fracking being tried, that don't need the same sorts of chemicals, or quantities.