The quote you pulled from the article is literally the oil company's PR rep - and the claim is addressed later with full context how the labs weren't equipped to handle fracking testing since they were setup for different purposes. From later:
> Since 2012, a trove of new data had accumulated from USGS, EPA and state regulators. He obtained EPA’s methanol testing results through a Freedom of Information Act request and downloaded the rest of the information from the Wyoming oil and gas regulator’s website. All of it was publicly available, waiting for the right person to spend a year crunching the information.
> The end result: a peer-reviewed study that reaffirms EPA’s findings that there was something suspicious going on in Pavillion. More research is needed.
> The sampling wells contained methanol. They also contained high levels of diesel compounds, suggesting they may have been contaminated by open pits where operators had stored chemicals, DiGiulio said.
I've seen fracking proponents earnestly arguing that the pollution in local water supplies wasn't from the fracking, but from the other associated activities e.g. wastewater disposal and some of these open-pit storage options. Kind of important that those associated activities literally only exist due to the fracking!
It's definitely true that in well-run sites with well-regulated wastewater and inspection regimes, fracking can happen with very little impact on groundwater or surface water -- it's also definitely true that there's a very strong profit motive for operators to cut corners and that in many places, they're in bed with the regulators which leads to a lot of otherwise avoidable pollution. It's alluring to claim that fracking is safe because it can be performed safely -- but the reality on the ground is much more mixed.
> Since 2012, a trove of new data had accumulated from USGS, EPA and state regulators. He obtained EPA’s methanol testing results through a Freedom of Information Act request and downloaded the rest of the information from the Wyoming oil and gas regulator’s website. All of it was publicly available, waiting for the right person to spend a year crunching the information.
> The end result: a peer-reviewed study that reaffirms EPA’s findings that there was something suspicious going on in Pavillion. More research is needed.
> The sampling wells contained methanol. They also contained high levels of diesel compounds, suggesting they may have been contaminated by open pits where operators had stored chemicals, DiGiulio said.
I've seen fracking proponents earnestly arguing that the pollution in local water supplies wasn't from the fracking, but from the other associated activities e.g. wastewater disposal and some of these open-pit storage options. Kind of important that those associated activities literally only exist due to the fracking!
It's definitely true that in well-run sites with well-regulated wastewater and inspection regimes, fracking can happen with very little impact on groundwater or surface water -- it's also definitely true that there's a very strong profit motive for operators to cut corners and that in many places, they're in bed with the regulators which leads to a lot of otherwise avoidable pollution. It's alluring to claim that fracking is safe because it can be performed safely -- but the reality on the ground is much more mixed.