Media reaction to research findings that trace amounts of chemicals used in Marcellus fracking were found a mile and a half away in three water wells is nearly orgasmic. “Finally! We can shut down this evil, wicked, nasty drilling for fossil fuels!” That’s the unstated (but very clear) reaction from anti-drilling “reporters” at the Associated Press, Bloomberg, StateImpact Pennsylvania and other assorted mainstream media outlets. They do their best to hide all of the pertinent facts in their “reporting.” So MDN is here to set the record straight. First, researchers at Penn State set out to tackle a particularly thorny problem. Back in 2010 (yes, over five years ago) three (yes, only three) property owners near a shale drilling operation reported problems with their drinking water. The researchers, using breakthrough, new “nontraditional” methods have determined that it’s likely (not 100% sure, but reasonably sure) that flowback water that was stored in an open pit leaked out of that pit and hit some underground fractures that allowed the flowback water to travel up to 2 kilometers (1.6 miles) away and contaminate the water wells of those three nearby neighbors. It happened one time, to three water wells, five years ago and was related to a leaky impoundment. Those are the facts. Here’s some of the headlines you’re reading yesterday and today in over 100 major news outlets coast to coast currently bombarding the population with this earth-shattering “news”…
