Yesterday, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finally released its plan with specifics for how it will conduct research into the question of whether or not hydraulic fracturing contaminates, or otherwise negatively impacts, drinking water supplies. A copy of the 190-page plan is embedded below.

The first (preliminary) results from the study are due in 2012, but a final report is not due until 2014. In order to meet those deadlines, the EPA has already begun collecting field data and water samples. The problem is, that data was collected before the the plan itself was completed—before the rules for how the data collection should be done were established. Industry groups rightly have asked EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson how data collection for the study can begin before the methodology, the “how we will do this” part of the study was complete. It immediately calls into question the veracity of the data itself.

The EPA has “jumped the gun” by starting before the methodology was released. GIGO—garbage in, garbage out.

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