Water Technology Magazine Gets it Wrong on Dimock Water Situation

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Marcellus Drilling News pointed out the problems in yesterday’s Reuters news story coverage of the contaminated water wells near a drilling site in Dimock, PA (see Reuters News Service Runs Hit Piece on Drilling in Dimock, PA and Cabot Oil & Gas). Exhibit A in how the slanted mainstream media perpetuates lies is Water Technology Online, the website of Water Technology Magazine (owned by EBSCO Industries). An editor at Water Technology saw the Reuters story and unquestioningly, and without research, dashed off a quick article with the headline, “PA residents blame ‘fracking’ for illness,” citing the Reuters piece as its source. The opening two paragraphs say this:

DIMOCK, PA — Families in this northern Pennsylvania rural community and elsewhere are reporting that the gas drilling method known as hydrofracking is tainting their well water and making them and their animals sick, Reuters reported on March 13.

Energy companies are using hydrofracking, also known as “fracking,” to tap the Marcellus Shale formation. During fracking, water mixed with chemicals is pumped into deep wells under pressure to crack rock formation and release trapped natural gas, a process that also contaminates the water. There also is concern about the chemicals used in hydrofracking water, as WaterTech Online® reported.

Without explicitly saying so, and leading readers to the wrong conclusion, the article implies the water wells in Dimock are contaminated with chemicals used in the fracking process, which is not true. The wells have been contaminated with natural gas itself, not with chemicals from fracking. But the Water Technology article makes no mention of that little fact.

Such is how media works. Again, my advice: Read the mainstream media’s coverage of this issue with a critical and questioning eye.

Read the full article: PA residents blame ‘fracking’ for illnesses