Federal Government Study Confirms Hydraulic Fracturing Does Not Contaminate Drinking Water

The Department of Energy ("DOE"), after a year-long study at a western Pennsylvania drilling site, has concluded that there is no evidence that chemicals used during the hydraulic fracturing process have contaminated drinking water aquifers adjacent to the drilling site.  According to DOE geologist Richard Hammack, the study found that hydraulic fracturing fluids remained thousands of feet below the shallower portions of the aquifer that supply drinking water.  The study was performed by the DOE's National Energy Technology Laboratory at a drilling site in Greene County, Pennsylvania.

As part of the study, eight wells in the Marcellus Shale formation were monitored seismically and one was injected with four different "tracers" at different stages in the hydraulic fracturing process.  The depth of the injection of the tracers was at approximately 8,000 feet below the surface of the well bore.  None of the tracers were detected in a monitoring zone at a depth of 5,000