EPA Fracking Report Needs Some Big Revisions, Says Science Advisory Board

WASHINGTON ― The Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board released a review of a major agency report on hydraulic fracturing’s potential impacts on groundwater, and it took to task the way the report’s findings were framed.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is a process used to extract oil and gas from rock formations using a high-pressure stream of water, sand and chemicals. The EPA’s draft report, which was released in June 2015, found “specific instances” of groundwater contamination from fracked oil and natural gas wells or wastewater disposal sites, but the agency concluded that there are no “widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”