Forbes: The Park Foundation Seeks Allies To Fight Shale Gas Revolution

The foundation’s mostly unknown ties to scientists, journalists and activist groups were on display last September in the brouhaha over a methane gas and fracking study that contradicted Howarth’s claims. Researchers at the University of Texas-Austin released a study done in cooperation with the Environmental Defense Fund that found that the national rate of leakage of methane during natural gas production was equivalent to four tenths of one percent of total U.S. extraction, vastly lower than Howarth’s claims. This was the most comprehensive shale-gas emissions study ever undertaken, covering 190 well pads around the country.

“We were surprised at that finding, yes,” I was told by Steven Hamburg, chief scientist for the EDF, who coordinated the independent research, one of 16 the EDF is overseeing. The EDF had thought it might be considerably higher. “In total,” Hamburg said, “the UT study found a leak rate equal to the EPA’s most recent” rate—which is far lower than Howarth’s wildly overstated 2011 guestimate.
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