Nika Knight – EPA’s Own Advisory Board Demands Revision of Deeply Flawed Fracking Report

The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) Science Advisory Board, a panel of independent scientists, is calling on the agency to revise last year’s muchmaligned report that declared fracking to have “no widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”

“The EPA’s own analysis shows that dirty oil and gas fracking contaminates drinking water, confirming what millions of Americans already know.”
—Lena Moffitt, Sierra Club

As the Washington Post reports:

The conclusion was widely cited and interpreted to mean that while there may have been occasional contamination of water supplies, it was not a nationwide problem. Many environmental groups faulted the study, even as industry groups hailed it.

But the 30-member advisory panel on Thursday concluded the agency’s report was “comprehensive but lacking in several critical areas.”

It recommended that the report be revised to include “quantitative analysis that supports its conclusion”—if, indeed, the conclusion can be defended.

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