EPA Shuts Door on Pavillion, WY Water Contamination Investigation
Just last year all we heard from mainstream media (promoting the anti-drilling viewpoint) was how fracking pollutes water. Just look at Pavillion, WY! they said. MDN analyzed the Pavillion potential “fracking contaminates groundwater” issue at length one year ago this month (see 3 Things to Know about Pavillion, Fracking & Water Contamination). Then, much to the dismay of anti-drillers, the federal EPA backed away from it’s bungled investigation in Pavillion this past June (see EPA Abandons Pavillion, Can’t Prove Fracking/Water Contamination).
Now, with hardly a peep, the EPA published an official notice in yesterday’s Federal Register that they’ve turned the lights out on their Pavillion investigation (see it embedded below). Over and done. The EPA has officially washed its hands of the investigation. Do you think you’ll read about that in the New York Times? Ha!…
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In March, MDN told you about the Shale Gas Roundtable, a group of high level participants from industry, government and academe organized and run by the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute on Politics (see 
Anti-drillers are nervous that one of the big-money spigots for funding their so-called research into the dangers of fracking is about to be shut off. In a developing soap opera, the “longtime head” of environmental grant making for the Heinz Endowments, Caren Glotfelty, has been shown the door. A number of anti-drilling studies have been funded by Glotfelty during her tenure at Heinz. Bobby Vagt, president of Heinz Enowments, will fill in for Glotfelty until a replacement is found. Vagt, you may recall, is involved with the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (see 
Technically this is not a story about the Marcellus or Utica Shale, but it is a story about fracking in shale, and making a splash among anti-drillers, so it deserves our attention and consideration. Researchers at the University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) have just published a peer-reviewed study in the journal Environmental Science & Technology titled, “An evaluation of water quality in private drinking water wells near natural gas extraction sites in the Barnett Shale Formation” (full copy embedded below for MDN subscribers). The study looks at 100 water wells in the Barnett Shale region of north Texas. UTA researchers used data from the 1990s–before horizontal drilling and fracking began in the region–and data from their own tests conducted in 2011.
This is truly rich. While anti-drillers prattle on about how a few gallons of chemicals a mile down in the earth will magically defy gravity and climb uphill through a mile of solid rock to contaminate water supplies (yeah, it NEVER happens), the scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have written a research paper that says shale is so secure, we ought to consider using it to dispose of spent nuclear waste–stuff that hangs around for millions of years!