EPA hits on new way to attack fracking: Water use

Water contamination is not panning out as a means of stopping fracking. So the EPA is working on a new plan.

Inside EPA reports,

A top adviser to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is ranking the agency’s core environmental concerns related to hydraulic fracturing, with strains on water supply as a top issue.

But EPA’s senior policy counsel Robert Sussman is warning that a lack of strong scientific conclusions about actual impacts could hamper the agency’s ability to promulgate policies to protect against potential adverse impacts where state regulations fall short.

“There’s a lot we need to know and don’t know about [fracking’s] impacts,” Sussman told the U.S. Conference of Mayors during its Jan. 19 winter meeting in Washington, DC. “We need a commitment to science, one that’s data-driven, not baseless, not conjecture and not theoretical concerns — its important not to overstate or understate these concerns.”

The agency needs to gather more data about the potential pathways for contamination and other environmental impacts to occur through fracking, he told the conference during a presentation, “Environmental Issues — Pros and Con — Regarding Natural Gas Extraction.”

Sussman’s comments come as the agency is in the midst of conducting a two-year, congressionally directed study into the potential impacts of fracking, on drinking water — an analysis which some environmentalists and one Democratic lawmaker have suggested could give EPA more solid ground to regulate the controversial practice.

So the EPA apparently plans to attack fracking by drying it out.