Talk:Environmental impact of fracking

Well Cementing

This page should cover well cementing as failures may be a potential cause for methane contmination of drinking water.

Robert Howarth interview in Gasland II, and http://www.slb.com/~/media/Files/resources/oilfield_review/ors03/aut03/p62_76.pdf

Rebuttal: http://energyindepth.org/national/debunking-gasland-part-ii/

Well cementing is not HF specific it applies to all gas wells. I agree with the assessment of Arthur Rubin above that we need also an article named Environmental impact of natural gas production. Beagel (talk) 13:22, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

Misleading statement on iodine-131

The third paragraph of the “Scientific debate” section starts with this statement:

“The 2012 EPA Hydraulic Fracturing Draft Plan was also narrowed. It does not include studying the effects of iodine-131 (found in Philadelphia's drinking water)[19][20][21]”

The clear implication of the above is that hydraulic fracturing may be responsible for radioactive iodine observed in Philadelphia drinking water, and that the EPA is ignoring this threat. But the cited references do not support this. References [19] and [20] concern EPA detection of temporary spikes in iodine-131 levels in Pennsylvania in early 2011 due to the Fukushima nuclear accident in Japan, but at what the EPA says are "levels well below public-health concern.” (ref [20]). Reference [21] describes spikes in iodine-131 concentrations in Wissahickon Creek, a small watershed in SE Pennsylvania far from any hydraulic fracturing; the high iodine-131 there was ascribed to urine from thyroid cancer patients being treated with iodine-131. None of the three cited references even mention hydraulic fracturing.

The statement has the problems that it is misleading, POV, and WP:SYN. If the wiki article is going to beat up the EPA study for not including some substances such as iodine-131, as is the intent of the above sentence, there should be a citation from a WP:RS noting that the study is deficient in leaving it out. Thanks. Plazak (talk) 03:55, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

Issue concerning also this article

Issue concerning also this article is raised here. Beagel (talk) 17:23, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

Scientific issues

In discussing the impacts of hydraulic fracturing, and the means by which it can be safely carried out, it might be useful to reference the 2012 report by the Royal Society (Shale gas extraction in the UK), which dealt with the technical and environmental aspects of shale gas extraction. Significantly, the report contains 10 recommendations for operators and regulators that, if faithfully followed, will likely mitigate the dangers associated with fracking. As such, mention of the report would help to frame the issue in this section. Disclosure: I am a former intern at the Royal Society, the science academy for the UK. BeecherP (talk) 10:55, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

WP:WEIGHT of new study: "Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported Health Status" (2014)

@Tillman: I came here to add [1] but then I noticed your recent deletion. Could you please explain how WP:WEIGHT applies to the recency of peer-reviewed studies? The PNAS report was in BBC and on NPR today, and the EHP paper got similar widespread secondary media coverage a few days ago, as per Google News. EllenCT (talk) 20:58, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The classic problem of epidemiological studies like this one is false positives, ie correlations by chance. This has plagued innumerable studies of (forex) cancer "hot spots". Also many problems of Confirmation bias elsewhere, especially in politicized topics. So, premature to put much weight on this one.

That said, I haven't read this study. Does it look legit? No objection to mentioning it in the body, maybe with a caveat, but inappropriate in the lede, as the IP had placed it. --Pete Tillman (talk) 21:14, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

The EHP study says n=492 people in 180 households using groundwater, with p-values of 0.004 for the lung problems and 0.01 for the skin problems, which means no more than a 0.4% and 1% chance of false positives, respectively. The usual standard for reporting epidemiological results is a 5% chance of error, so I would certainly include it. The PNAS paper used noble gas spectrography to trace sources of methane, and they say p<0.01 for all the sources of contamination they identified, so it's just as good. Given how much press both studies got, I would be inclined to summarize both of them per the WP:LEAD instructions on prominent controversies. EllenCT (talk) 21:41, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

OK, I took a look. Here's the full text: [2]

Per the abstract, "Methods: We conducted a hypothesis generating health symptom survey..." This is unpromising.

"Conclusions: The results of this study suggest that natural gas drilling activities could be associated with increased reports of dermal and upper respiratory symptoms... (p. 19, PDF) They recommend "further research". OK, but it's all pretty vague. So -- summarize, but best to wait for some third-party RS reactions. We don't have deadlines here ;-] --Pete Tillman (talk) 22:05, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Do you know what a hypothesis-generating survey is? As opposed to a hypothesis-testing survey? Both reports have already appeared in several international news media RSs. EllenCT (talk) 22:30, 15 September 2014 (UTC)

Any source for health information need to be a WP:MEDRS. This isn't one. Alexbrn ^{talk|contribs|COI} 20:46, 16 September 2014 (UTC)

The EHP study has widespread coverage in international secondary news e.g. [3] and the PNAS study's health claims are all part of its WP:SECONDARY literature review section. The remainder of the article makes no health claims, just showing the routes and magnitude of groundwater contamination. EllenCT (talk) 03:27, 17 September 2014 (UTC)

"Although potential benefits of Marcellus natural gas exploitation are large for transition to a clean energy economy, at present the regulatory framework in New York State is inadequate to prevent potentially irreversible threats to the local environment and New York City water supply. Major investments in state and federal regulatory enforcement will be required to avoid these environmental consequences, and a ban on drilling within the NYC water supply watersheds is appropriate." -- from the WP:MEDRS PMID 23722091.

http://libgen.org/scimag/get.php?doi=10.1016/j.pedn.2011.07.012 (PMID 22703686) is also a MEDRS, and is very informative as to the specific details. EllenCT (talk) 19:52, 25 September 2014 (UTC)

NPOV?

It doesn't seem the article is written with a very neutral point of view, and seems to jump to conclusions, at least in the summary.