Awkward! Hydraulic Fracturing Opponent Funds Wrong Results

In 2014 the Deer Creek Foundation gave $25,000 to the Media Alliance in Oakland, Calif. to help fund a documentary on the “rise of extreme oil and gas extraction—fracking, tar sands development, and oil drilling in the Arctic.” In 2009, the foundation gave $20,000 to the Northern Plains Resource Council, a Montana activist group that claims “fracking damages water, land, and wildlife.”

But in early February professor Amy Townsend-Small of the University of Cincinnati, head of the Ohio water testing project, revealed her team’s findings to the Carroll County Concerned Citizens, a group of local anti-fracturing activists. “The good news is that our study did not document that fracking was directly linked to water contamination,” Townsend-Small reported.

That’s when things got interesting, comments the Chamber of Commerce, quoting Mike Chadsey of the Ohio Oil and Gas Association. “It was shortly after Dr. Townsend-Small released that statement that a pin drop on the carpet would have been overheard. The silence was so obvious that even the leader of the group, Mr. Paul Feezel said, ‘You all are very quiet tonight.’” An audience member then asked if the university was going to publicize the results of the study, noting that had the findings been unfavorable to drilling, that would have been national news. “I’m really sad to say this, but some of our funders, the groups that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our results,” Townsend-Small answered.

Asked to elaborate, the university professor explained that the groups providing funding feel that hydraulic fracturing is scary, and so they were hoping the data could point to a reason to ban it. Members of Carroll Concerned Citizens then apparently silently slipped away, hoping news of the university’s study results remained confined to a local newspaper covering the meeting.

The Chamber of Commerce comments that the University of Cincinnati research findings match what other experts have found—hydraulic fracturing, when done properly, is safe for the environment. A Yale University-led study did not find evidence that hydraulically fractured natural gas wells contaminated ground water. A U.S. Department of Energy laboratory found that neither natural gas nor hydraulic fracturing fluid traveled upward through the rock in wells tested in Pennsylvania. In 2014, U.S. Department of the Interior Secretary—and former petroleum engineer—Sally Jewell told lawmakers, “I do believe [hydraulic fracturing] can be done safely and responsibly, and has been in many cases.” Even the Environmental Protection Agency has looked at the science and has concluded that hydraulic fracturing has not had “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water.” “Not even well-heeled opponents of hydraulic fracturing can base their opposition to the technology on science,” asserts the Chamber of Commerce. “It may have been an awkward moment for fracturing opponents, but it was good news for supporters of safe, effective American energy development.”