US Research: Faulty Well Integrity, Not Fracking, Main Cause of Water Contamination

Deep hydraulic fracturing is not the primary cause of drinking water contamination from shale gas extraction, says a new scientific research based on date on Pennsylvania and Texas.

‘Faulty well integrity, not hydraulic fracturing deep underground, is the primary cause of drinking water contamination from shale gas extraction in parts of Pennsylvania and Texas, according to a new study by researchers from five universities,’ reads the note released by Duke University on Monday.

The scientists from five American universities published their peer-reviewed study on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 

“We found eight clusters of wells -- seven in Pennsylvania and one in Texas -- with contamination, including increased levels of natural gas from the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania and from shallower, intermediate layers in both states,” Thomas H. Darrah, assistant professor of earth science at Ohio State, commented. 

Darrah, who led the research, said that data prove that the contamination in these clusters is mainly due to poor casing and cementing. 

“These results appear to rule out the possibility that methane has migrated up into drinking water aquifers because of horizontal drilling or hydraulic fracturing, as some people feared,” said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke.