EPA delays fracking safety study until 2016

By John Upton 06/24/13

We told you last week that the EPA is abandoning an investigation that linked fracking chemicals with groundwater contamination in Wyoming. Amid controversy over that move, news about EPA delaying another fracking study got overlooked by most media.

In 2010, Congress ordered the EPA to look into the dangers posed to drinking water sources by hydraulic fracturing. That research was expected to be completed in 2014. But last Tuesday, an EPA official told attendees of a shale-gas conference in Cleveland, Ohio, that it wouldn’t be done until 2016.

The Akron Beacon Journal was one of the few outlets to cover the news:

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is analyzing the threat that hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, poses to drinking water, but that study won’t be completed until 2016. Read more...