Third in a series
Re “Fracking Can Be Linked to Damage, Vice Mayor Says”
[img]1154|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]In her ongoing campaign to bring a fracking ban or moratorium to Culver City, Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells speaks of discoveries in Pennsylvania by hydro-geologist Stephen G. Osborn and three other team members.
Alluding to a 2011 report headlined “Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing,” she quotes the research:
“Directional drilling and hydraulic-fracturing technologies are dramatically increasing natural-gas extraction. In aquifers overlying the Marcellus and Utica shale formations of northeastern Pennsylvania and upstate New York, we document systematic evidence for methane contamination of drinking water associated with shale gas extraction. In active gas-extraction areas (one or more gas wells within 1 km), average and maximum methane concentrations in drinking-water wells increased with proximity to the nearest gas well and were a potential explosion hazard.”
Ms. Sahli-Wells says that when Dr. Osborn and his team were conducting research for Duke University, “he found increasing amounts of methane in creeks, the closer he came to fracking sites. This was the first conclusive study of its kind. In fracking circles, it is known as the Duke Study.”
The vice mayor said that Dr. Osborn presently is at Cal Poly Pomona to study how fracking in California is affecting geological formations.
“He wants to know if there is water contamination,” says Ms. Sahli-Wells. “In Pennsylvania, the answer was yes.”
A month before she is scheduled to rotate into the mayor’s chair, by vote of her City Council colleagues, and several days after hearing anti-fracking activists at the Council meeting tie tragic health problems to fracking, she was asked if she accepted the premise of their linkages.
“It is heartbreaking to hear those studies,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said. “I do believe there is a link. It’s pretty simple. All you have to do is look at the South Coast Air Quality Management District website. They list the chemicals contained in fracking, acidization and gravel-packing. These are not friendly chemicals. They are not good for the human body. Yet they are being used over and over.”
Question: How does that prove problems are resulting?
“I would say you have to follow the science. If you are using chemicals that are not good for you, in a way that they can escape, get into the air, basically you are spreading poison.”
(To be continued)
