Tiemann, Mary. Hydraulic Fracturing and Safe Drinking Water Act Issues. Washington,
D.C..UNT Digital Library. http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc83959/.
The natural gas industry is essential for day-to-day function and is literally what fuels other industries and the world. The implementation of the changes to the Filtration Avoidance Determination would be detrimental to the natural gas industry and will have a great impact on our daily lives.
The number of onshore gas wells in the United States nearly doubled in the past twenty years to about 500,000 wells and according to the Independent Petroleum Association of America, more than 90% of new natural gas wells in the United States rely on hydraulic fracturing and together they have accounted for the production of more than 600 trillion cubic feet of gas. Fracturing is similarly applied in the production of US oil and nearly 7 billion barrels of oil have been produced using the same process.
As hydraulic fracturing is one of the primary means of oil and gas extraction, we strongly suggest reevaluating the decision to add changes to the Filtration Avoidance Determination. Though there have been several cases of well-water contamination, the source of the problem mostly remains undetermined. In numerous cases, the contamination incidents have been attributed to poor well construction or surface activities rather than hydraulic fracturing.
Evidence of hydraulic fracturing directly causing water contamination is simply non-existent and the natural gas industry should not have to pay as a result of numerous speculations.
