In this post I attempt to provide a context for an article in NYT, Drilling Down: Regulation Lax as Gas Wells’ Tainted Water Hits Rivers by IAN URBINA, published on February 26, 2011. The article seems to imply that much of the potentially deadly radioactive contamination of drinking water supply in Pennsylvania comes from "frac water" produced after hydrofracturing the deep natural gas wells there. Such an assertion is not supported by facts, and here is why. The raw data from the NYT spreadsheet, emailed to me by Mr. Urbina, are plotted here . In the spreadsheet, there are up to five different measurements of radioactivity in the water produced from each of 212 natural gas wells in Pennsylvania. Total alpha radiation refers to all alpha-particle-emitting radioisotopes present in the produced water. In some wells there were additional measurements of alpha-radioactivity from two isotopes of radium and two isotopes of uranium. By subtraction, the difference of betwee
In this blog, I continue to write about the environment, ecology, energy, complexity, and humans. Of particular interest to me are human self-delusions and mad stampedes to nowhere.