EVIDENCE ON FRACKING FOR GAS LOWERS ALARM

A picture is worth a thousand words. Seldom do we hear that a picture can also obscure a thousand
truths. Consider this case from the Jan. 26 Science, our nation's most authoritative source for
science news.

A woman stands at her kitchen sink setting her tap water on fire. The great evil of shale gas fracking
has invaded someone's home in Pennsylvania and threatened her family's safety. My pulse rises.

Below that photo is the dull headline "Engaging over data on fracking and water quality." My pulse
falls. And below that headline is a balanced, plodding review of an enormous database reaching the
tepid conclusion that there is no clear conclusion.

The flaming photo embraces the norms of mass media journalism. The text below the photo violates
those same norms.

That's why I liked the article so much. It doesn't rely on polarization or fear or salaciousness to keep
me reading. Instead, I'm treated to a nuanced review of an important but "wicked" scientific problem
(short for "wickedly complex"). Multiple private and pubic stakeholders with deeply contrasting values
disagree at different levels of political jurisdiction about highly technical issues spanning multiple
scientific disciplines. This makes rocket science sound easy.

The flaming photo, taken in 2012, is already six years old. To what extent does it implicate the
enterprise of fracking (high-volume hydraulic fracturing for shale gas) in 2018? The photo
immediately postdates the great acceleration in shale gas fracking between 2004 and 2011
stimulated by advances in drilling technology. Things have slowed down since. In Pennsylvania
alone, there are approximately 11,000 shale gas wells, one of which may have leaked enough
methane to flare at the woman's faucet.

The article's tepid text, billed a "policy forum," concludes that fracking pollution cannot easily be
distinguished from background noise. This conclusion comes from a careful analysis of a public,
online, open-access, well-vetted, non-proprietary data base designed to be equally inclusive of all
stakeholders: the general public, academics, consultants, industry practitioners, government and
nonscientists from watershed groups.

Specifically, "contamination from shale gas activities can be difficult or impossible to document"
based on [more than] 1 million measured values from [more than] 28,000 sites and tens of
thousands of groundwater samples tested for up to 50 analytes. More specifically, the authors were
not surprised to learn "of [less than] 10 incidents where data in the database marginally document
contamination effects through 2017." Even more specifically, "In the 10-year period when
[approximately] 10,000 wells were drilled after 2004, [less than] 100 spills or leaks greater than 400
gallons transiently contaminated [less than] 200 km of the [approximately] 70,000 km of PA streams
overlying the Marcellus [shale gas] play."

Does this mean I support fracking? Or that I'm opposed to it? No on both counts. What I support is
the idea that public policy should be based on: cooperation between stakeholders; publicly
accessible quantitative data and objective analysis. It should not be based on parochial agitation,
anecdotal stories and high emotion. With this (and other) "wicked" problems, it's as wrong for
politicians to pretend there are clear answers as it is wrong for them to delay potential solutions
because the problem is complex. I know how fracking works, and I know that the abundance of
shale gas has dramatically reduced public and private energy bills and carbon footprints. What I do
not pretend to know are the details.

Wicked problems like fracking, gun control, race, abortion and climate change are more challenging
than so-called rocket science. The latter is easy because the stakeholders are nicely aligned; the
jurisdic- tions are clear; the legal issues are nonconstitutional and the science boils down to time-
tested laws of chemical propulsion, aerodynamic drag and gravitational attraction.

Using the phrase "This isn't rocket science" to oversimplify a wicked problem is patronizing to
nonscientists and pretends that answers will be simple. They never are.

This case history, this policy forum highlights a great social truth. The process of working together on
wicked problems is more important than the product of finding answers.

Apparently, shale gas fracking isn't the great evil it's been cracked up to be (pun intended).