Leaky Gas Wells, Not Fracking, Are to Blame For Dirty Groundwater, Say Experts

Fracking has long been demonized as a polluter of groundwater and US drinking water. However, a new study has revealed that while fracking is a small polluter, it may actually be leaking natural gas wells that are the root of the groundwater pollution problem.

The study, recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), details how a team of researchers initially were trying to confirm suspicions that fracking fluid runoff, containing hydrocarbons, was truly to blame for increasingly contaminated water supplies.

The researchers highlighted eight areas in all that were heavily polluted, located in heavily fracked parts of Pennsylvania and Texas.

However, when they worked to trace the origin of these well contaminants, they stumbled upon worrying concentrations of noble gases. The composition and state of these chemicals revealed to the researchers that the gases did not seep downward through various layers of rock and water to get to where they were. Instead, it seemed as if they had reached the well directly from deep underground.

"The worst case scenario is that [the gases are] migrating from fracking, and our data pretty much exclude that possibility," study author Thomas Darrah of Ohio State University told New Scientist.

In fact, he added that their results seem to imply that the contaminants were coming from leaky pipelines.

According to Darrah, this shouldn't come as much of a surprise. While fracking has taken the contamination spotlight, the dangerous consequences of aging and potentially leaky gas lines has been known for decades, and has only recently been forgotten by the public.

Bringing attention back to this persistent issue could help keep our groundwater clean.

Still, that's not to say that fracking doesn't deserve tight control as well. Nature World News recently reported how many geological and environmental experts are making the argument that "blind" fracking - conducted without the consideration of its environmental impact on local ecosystems - could prove catastrophic in the long run.