Will This Winter Be Mild or Wild? Here's What We Can Expect

By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | October 18, 2018 
The winter outlook 2018-2019 map for temperature shows higher than average temperatures across much of the U.S.Credit: NOAA 
Most of the United States can look forward to a mild winter with above-average temperatures, particularly in Alaska, Hawaii and the northern and western states, experts with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced today (Oct. 18).

Officials with NOAA's Climate Prediction Center (CPC) shared their predictions at a news conference, describing the outlook for winter precipitation and temperatures in the U.S. from December 2018 through February 2019.

Below-average temperatures are expected to be scarce in every part of the U.S., but there's likely to be plenty of snow or rain, with wetter-than-average conditions predicted for the southern part of the country and up into the mid-Atlantic states, according to the NOAA winter outlook. [In Photos: Best National Parks to Visit During Winter]

A developing El Niño — part of an ocean-climate cycle that can influence weather — could also leave its mark on the winter weather, as El Niño typically brings wetter conditions to the southern U.S., while shaping warm, dry conditions in the North, Mike Halpert, the CPC's deputy director, explained at the news conference.

Northern Florida and southern Georgia have the highest probability of experiencing a wetter-than-average winter, according to the report.

Though El Niño is still taking shape, there's a very good chance — about 70 to 75 percent — that it will emerge over the next few months and persist through the winter, Halpert said. El Niño is part of a climate cycle known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO); during El Niño, warm Pacific Ocean waters shift to the eastern coast of South America. In a strong El Niño year, ocean temperatures are even warmer than average. This phenomenon heats the air above the water and sets up a feedback loop between the sea and the atmosphere, which can dramatically impact weather patterns.

A powerful El Niño can bring unusually warm winter temperatures to the U.S. The winter of 2015 to 2016, which took place during the strongest El Niño in 60 years, was the warmest winter on record for the continental U.S., Halpert said.
However, this year's El Niño is anticipated to be much weaker than that, he added.

As for drought predictions, some relief is expected in Arizona, New Mexico, the southern parts of Colorado and Utah, and the coastal Pacific Northwest.

But drought conditions are expected to persist in the northern Plains states; in Southern California and the interior parts of the Pacific Northwest; and in the central Rockies, the central Plains states and the central Great Basin.

While there is always a certain amount of uncertainty in long-term weather and drought predictions such as these, the track record for the accuracy of the CPC seasonal outlooks is about 40 percent, up from a previous estimate of 30 percent, Halpert said.
"That's the general level for these type of forecasts," he added.
Originally publishedon Live Science.

Thanx Mindy Weisberger
Knight Man

Voters rejected most ballot measures aimed at curbing climate change

From Arizona to Colorado, voters reject measures to ramp up renewables and limit drilling. 
Measures to curb climate change foundered in many Western states, but environmental advocates did see victories in Florida and Nevada. (Luis Velarde /The Washington Post) 
By Brady Dennis and  In Arizona, voters said no to accelerating the shift to renewable energy. In Colorado, they said no to an effort to sharply limit drilling on nonfederal land. And a measure to make Washington the first state to tax carbon emissions appears to have fallen short.
The failure of environmental ballot measures in Arizona and Colorado — and the likely defeat of a proposal to impose fees on carbon emissions in Washington state — underscore the difficulty of tackling a global problem such as climate change at the state and local level, where huge sums of money poured in on both sides.
Even as a U.N.-backed panel of scientists recently warned that the world has barely a decade to radically cut its emissions of greenhouse gases that fuel global warming, the Trump administration has been busy expanding oil and gas drilling and rolling back Obama-era efforts to mitigate climate change. Environmental advocates and Democratic lawmakers have placed much hope in state and local governments to counter those policies.
But while Tuesday saw the election of numerous candidates dedicated to climate action, individual ballot measures aimed at the same goal largely foundered.
“What we learned from this election, in states like Colorado, Arizona, and Washington, is that voters reject policies that would make energy more expensive and less reliable,” said Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, an industry-backed free-market advocacy group.
Richard Newell, president of the nonpartisan think tank Resources for the Future, drew a different conclusion.
“The complexities and politics of the clean energy transition are best navigated through a legislative process, which has been the basis for virtually all significant state level climate and renewable energy policy,” Newell said in an email. “I would not take this as a repudiation of public desire to address climate change, including through carbon pricing or clean energy standards, but rather that the details and who is engaged in the policy formulation matter, a lot. That’s tough to do through a ballot initiative.” 


Even in the solidly blue state of Washington, initial results looked grim for perhaps the most consequential climate-related ballot measure in the country this fall: a statewide initiative that would have imposed a first-in-the-nation fee on emissions of carbon dioxide, the most prevalent of the greenhouse gases that drive global warming. While voters in King County, home to Seattle, turned out heavily in favor of the measure, residents across the rest of the state largely opposed it.
One bright spot for environmental advocates came in Nevada, where voters appeared poised to pass a measure similar to the one Arizonans rejected. It would require utilities to generate 50 percent of their electricity from renewables by 2030. The proposal was leading handily with most votes tallied Wednesday. But before the measure could become law, it has to survive a second vote in 2020.
Since President Trump took office, a handful of states — notably California — have vowed to serve as a counterweight on energy and environmental policy to a president who frequently dismisses the government’s own findings that human activity is warming the globe. In September, California codified into law a commitment to produce 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free courses by 2045.

But Tuesday’s ballot question results demonstrate the limits to which other states are willing to follow California’s lead — particularly when campaigners against the proposals emphasize the potential impact on pocketbooks.
Supporters and proponents poured an eye-popping amount of money, more than $54 million, into the fight over the future of energy in Arizona. Only two Senate races in the country — in Florida and Texas — saw more spending this year.
The influx of cash underscores how much both sides believed was at stake. The ballot initiative would have amended the Arizona constitution to require electric utilities to use renewable energy for 50 percent of its power generation by 2035. That might seem easily within reach in sunny Arizona. But the state now gets only about 6 percent of its energy from the sun.

The state’s biggest utility, Arizona Public Service, or APS, emerged as the most fervent opponent of the proposal, pouring more than $30 million into a political action committee called Arizonans for Affordable Electricity. In an aggressive ad campaign, the group argued that the measure would cost households an additional $1,000 a year.
“We’ve said throughout this campaign there is a better way to create a clean-energy future for Arizona that is also affordable and reliable,” APS chief executive Don Brandt said in a statement Tuesday evening.
Meanwhile, an alliance of dozens of organizations called Clean Energy for a Healthy Arizona argued that the shift toward cleaner energy will improve public health and create good jobs in the state. The group got a huge assist from California billionaire investor and political activist Tom Steyer, who donated the lion’s share of the nearly $23.6 million raised through the end of September.
Twenty-nine states and the District already have programs known as Renewable Portfolio Standards, or RPS, that require utilities to ensure a certain amount of the electricity they sell comes from renewable resources. But only a fraction of those have targets as ambitious as the ones proposed this year in Arizona and Nevada. For instance, New York and New Jersey also have targets of 50 percent renewable energy by 2030. Hawaii would require 100 percent of its energy to be from renewable sources by 2045.
During the 2018 campaign, however, 11 Democratic candidates for governor vowed to try to get all of their respective states’ electricity from “clean” energy sources by the middle of the century, according to surveys done by the state affiliates of the League of Conservation Voters. Several of those candidates, including Jared Polis in Colorado, won their races.
In Colorado, environmental advocates failed to pass a measure known as Proposition 112. The initiative would have required new wells to be at least 2,500 feet from occupied buildings and other “vulnerable areas” such as parks and irrigation canals — a distance several times that of existing regulations. It also allows local governments to require even larger setbacks.
As oil production has soared in Colorado in recent years and the population has grown, more and more residents are living near oil and gas facilities. Those who supported the ballot measure argued it was necessary to reduce potential health risks and the noise and other nuisances of living near drilling sites. Opponents countered that the proposal would virtually eliminate new oil and gas drilling on nonfederal land in the state — they have derided it as an “anti-fracking” push — and claimed it would cost jobs and deprive local governments of tax revenue.
The industry-backed group, Protect Colorado, raised roughly $38 million this year as it opposed the controversial measure, which it says would “wipe out thousands of jobs and devastate Colorado’s economy for years to come.” By contrast, the main group backing the proposal, known as Colorado Rising for Health and Safety, raised about $1 million.
“We appreciate Colorado voters who realized what a devastating impact this measure would have had on our state’s economy, school funding, public safety and other local services, ” Karen Crummy, spokeswoman for Protect Colorado, said in an email late Tuesday.
Separately, Chip Rimer, chairman of the board for the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, called Proposition 112 “an extreme proposal” that would have devastated the state’s economy. “Moving forward we will continue working together with all stakeholders to develop solutions that ensure we can continue to deliver the energy we need, the economy we want and the environment we value,” he said in a statement.
Coloradans also rejected a separate but related measure Tuesday that would have amended the Colorado constitution to allow property owners to seek compensation if government actions devalue their property. The proposal has been sharply criticized by dozens of city councils and panned by Gov. John Hickenlooper (D), who called it “a dangerous idea” in which “unscrupulous developers and speculators could make claims on local governments for literally anything they think has hurt the value of their land.” 
Meanwhile, in Washington, the effort to put a price on carbon emissions appeared on the verge of defeat early Wednesday, with 56.3 percent of voters rejecting the measure and 43.7 percent supporting it with two-thirds of votes counted. An official at the Washington secretary of state’s office said the vote-by-mail system in the state means it could take several days for a final vote tally.

Known as Initiative 1631, the measure would have made Washington the first state in the nation to tax carbon dioxide — an approach many scientists, environmental advocates and policymakers argue will be essential on a broad scale to nudge the world away from its reliance on fossil fuels.
But that proposal, like other environmental initiatives across the country, faced a bitter fight, pitting Big Oil refiners against a collection of advocates that includes unions, Native American groups, business leaders such as Bill Gates and former New York mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, as well as the state’s Democratic governor, Jay Inslee.
It also has set a state spending record along the way for a state ballot initiative. The group pressing for the carbon fee, known as the Clean Air, Clean Energy coalition, has raised more than $15 million. Meanwhile, oil companies belonging to the Western States Petroleum Association pumped more than $31 million into opposing the measure.
The initial $15-a-ton fee would have kicked in beginning in 2020, then increased $2 per ton (plus inflation) each year until 2035, when it would either freeze or rise, depending on whether the state had met its targets to slash greenhouse gas emissions.
Climate campaigners did win at least one victory Tuesday in the Sunshine State. Florida voters, perhaps with the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill still fresh in mind, overwhelmingly decided to amend the state’s constitution to ban offshore oil and gas drilling in state waters.
But even then, it was unclear whether offshore drilling alone motivated 69 percent of voters to support the measure. It was paired, oddly, with a proposal to prohibit indoor vaping.

Crusader Jenny , Nanook & Mika

Canadian Wildlife Federation

Wildlife on the planet earth has, at the latest, broad spectrum calculation, including aquatic life, been reduced by 60%.... that is sixty percent. Just contemplate that for a moment fellow humans. The principal causes are climate change, pollution, loss of habitat and food sources, hunting and poaching. We cannot save a lot of these species from total extinction. Their situations have become irreversible.

 In Canada, we have lost 50% of our wildlife. Our fecund northern wilderness has always had an over-abundance of mammals, predators and prey, amphibians and reptiles. I remember as a child, the sky could grow black with enormous flocks of birds. We camped near the grazing grounds of great stags and moose. We watched, from a distance, the bears fishing for salmon in the rapids. We could hear the wolves, lynx and bobcats calling at night. We stayed far away from the hunting grounds of the mountain lions who can reach over two hundred pounds and the big bears who were grumpy fellows who could kill with a swipe of their massive paws. I remember hauling big pickerel and trout from the waters by the dozen, fishing with my dad and uncle. I guess we thought it would always be that way and we were careless and thoughtless, along with the rest of the world. Global warming is a major cause of wildlife loss in our most northern regions.  Global warming causes our climate to change and is like a cancer on the planet....It grows and grows, unrestrained. And, until we come up with a comprehensive solution, all we can do is try and reduce our carbon footprint and find a substitute for fossil fuels. It's the greatest tragedy in human history.

 We should not worry about immigrants seeking asylum or terrorists sneaking into our country. The biggest crisis we face does not carry a gun or seek to overthrow the government. But it will destroy the world nonetheless.

 



The oceans are soaking up more heat than estimated: - The time for being lazy and unconcerned is running out

The new study says the oceans have absorbed far more heat than previously thought

 

Researchers say that the world has seriously underestimated the amount of heat soaked up by our oceans over the past 25 years. Their study suggests that the seas have absorbed 60% more than previously thought. They say it means the Earth is more sensitive to fossil fuel emissions than estimated. This could make it much more difficult to keep global warming within safe levels this century.

What have the researchers found?

According to the last major assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the world's oceans have taken up over 90% of the excess heat trapped by greenhouse gases.

But this new study says that every year, for the past 25 years, we have put about 150 times the amount of energy used to generate electricity globally into the seas - 60% more than previous estimates. ...That's a big problem.

Scientists base their predictions about how much the Earth is warming by adding up all the excess heat that is produced by the known amount of greenhouse gases that have been emitted by human activities.

This new calculation shows that far more heat than we thought has been going into oceans. But it also means that far more heat than we thought has been generated by the warming gases we have emitted. Therefore more heat from the same amount of gas means the Earth is more sensitive to CO2.

What are the implications of the finding?

The researchers involved in the study believe the new finding will make it much harder to keep within the temperature rise targets set by governments in the Paris agreement. Recently the IPCC spelled out clearly the benefits to the world of keeping below the lower goal of 1.5C relative to pre-industrial levels.  This new study says that will be very difficult indeed.

"It is a big concern," said lead author Dr Laure Resplandy from Princeton University in New Jersey.

The authors say that sea levels may rise quicker than previously forecast

"If you look at the IPCC 1.5C, there are big challenges ahead to keep those targets, and our study suggests it's even harder because we close the window for those lower pathways."
The report suggests that to prevent temperatures rising above 2C, carbon emissions from human activities must be reduced by 25% more than previously estimated.

What does it mean for the oceans?

As well as potentially making it more difficult to keep warming below 1.5 or even 2C this century, all that extra heat going into the oceans will prompt some significant changes in the waters.
"A warmer ocean will hold less oxygen, and that has implications for marine ecosystems," said Dr Resplandy.
"There is also sea level, if you warm the ocean more you will have more thermal expansion and therefore more sea level rise."

What have these scientists done differently?

Since 2007, scientists have been able to rely on a system of almost 4,000 Argo floats that record temperature and salinity in the oceans around the world.
But prior to this, the methods used to measure the heat in the ocean had many flaws and uncertainties.
Now, researchers have developed what they say is a highly precise method of detecting the temperature of the ocean by measuring the amount of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the air. This allows them to accurately measure ocean temperatures globally, dating back to 1991, when accurate data from a global network of stations became available.
The key element is the fact that as waters get warmer they release more carbon dioxide and oxygen into the air.
"When the ocean warms, the amount of these gases that the ocean is able to hold goes down," said Dr Resplandy.
"So what we measured was the amount lost by the oceans, and then we can calculate how much warming we need to explain that change in gases."

Will the heat ever come back out?

Yes, say the authors, but over a very long time.
"The heat stored in the ocean will eventually come back out if we start cooling the atmosphere by reducing the greenhouse effect," said Dr Resplandy.
"The fact that the ocean holds so much heat that can be transferred back to the atmosphere makes it harder for us to keep the Earth surface temperature below a certain target in the future."

 More heat means less oxygen in the water which could have implications for many species
 

 "The ocean circulation that controls the ocean heat uptake/release operates on time scales of centuries, meaning that ocean heat would be released for the centuries to come."

How have other scientists responded to the findings?

With some concern.
"The authors have a very strong track record and very solid reputation... which lends the story credibility," said Prof Sybren Drijfhout at the UK's National Oceanography Centre in Southampton.
"The updated estimate is indeed worrying in terms of how likely it is that society can meet 1.5 and 2 degree targets as it shifts the lower bound of climate sensitivity upward."
Others say that further work is required.
"The uncertainty in the ocean heat content change estimate is still large, even when using this new independent method, which also has uncertainties," said Thomas Froelicher from the University of Bern, Switzerland.
"The conclusion about a potential higher climate sensitivity and potentially less allowable carbon emission to stay below 2C should stimulate further investigation."
The study has been published in the journal Nature.

Wake up people of Earth!! Our planet is in crisis.

Thanx to the BBC

What !! You still don't believe in 'climate change'!! Ten pictures to help convince you

1/10 A group of emperor penguins face a crack in the sea ice, near McMurdo Station, Antarctica

2/10 Amid a flood in Islampur, Jamalpur, Bangladesh, a woman on a raft searches for somewhere dry to take shelter. Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable places in the world to sea level rise, which is expected to make tens of millions of people homeless by 2050.

3/10 Hanna Petursdottir examines a cave inside the Svinafellsjokull glacier in Iceland, which she said had been growing rapidly. Since 2000, the size of glaciers on Iceland has reduced by 12 per cent.

4/10 Floods destroyed eight bridges and ruined crops such as wheat, maize and peas in the Karimabad valley in northern Pakistan, a mountainous region with many glaciers. In many parts of the world, glaciers have been in retreat, creating dangerously large lakes that can cause devastating flooding when the banks break.

5/10 Smoke – filled with the carbon that is driving climate change – drifts across a field in Colombia.

6/10 A river once flowed along the depression in the dry earth of this part of Bangladesh, but it has disappeared amid rising temperatures.

7/10 Sindh province in Pakistan has experienced a grim mix of two consequences of climate change. “Because of climate change either we have floods or not enough water to irrigate our crop and feed our animals,” says the photographer. "Picture clearly indicates that the extreme drought makes wide cracks in clay. "

 

8/10 A shepherd moves his herd as he looks for green pasture near the village of Sirohi in Rajasthan, northern India. The region has been badly affected by heatwaves and drought, making local people nervous about further predicted increases in temperature.

9/10 A factory in China is shrouded by a haze of air pollution. The World Health Organization has warned such pollution, much of which is from the fossil fuels that cause climate change, is a “public health emergency”.

10/10 Water levels in reservoirs, like this one in Gers, France, have been getting perilously low in areas across the world affected by drought, forcing authorities to introduce water restrictions.

ARE YOU BEGINNING TO BELIEVE US??

Trying to grapple with climate change in Alaska

BY NANCY FRESCO ...  CO-ORDINATOR  UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA

Coastal villages are washing into the Bering Sea, trees are sprouting in the tundra and shipping lanes are opening in an ocean that was once locked in ice. In Alaska, climate change isn’t a distant or abstract concern.
As a climate change researcher at the International Arctic Research Center at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, I see a lot of compelling data – and also hear a lot of compelling stories. Both data and stories are important.
For everyone from the National Park Service to the military, from the oil industry to city managers to traditional hunters, adapting to climate change is the new reality in Alaska.

The Aggie Creek Fire near Fairbanks in 2015

It’s happening – and fast

Almost 12 years ago, we embarked upon a new research effort at our state university. The idea was simple: Meet the needs of those planning for our state’s future by providing information on climate change that was local, relevant and scientifically valid.
First named the Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning (SNAP), we soon had to add the word “Arctic” to our name, because we realized that Canada and other countries from the polar region were as eager for long-term forecasts of climate change trends as Alaska was.
In the Arctic and sub-Arctic, climate change is accelerated and its effects are profound. This is primarily the result of what is known as the “albedo effect”: As we lose reflective ice and snow due to warming, more heat-absorbing dark ground and water are exposed. Thus, local warming gets even more extreme.
Just where climate change effects are extreme, data is often limited. Few weather stations offer long-term reliable histories. Populations are sparse. So we glean information from a variety of sources and combine that with historical data and the accumulated knowledge of people who live on the landscape. All point incontrovertibly to a warming environment.

The ‘drunken forest,’ where trees lean and tilt when the permafrost under them thaws. National Park Service            

Widespread effects

The ways in which this change plays out are as diverse as the people and landscapes of Alaska.
Our state includes not only Arctic tundra underlain by the permanently frozen ground called “permafrost,” but also vast stretches of spruce, birch, aspen, alder and willow trees: the boreal forest. To the west, the windy Aleutian islands stretch out into the Pacific, and to the southeast, Alaska hugs the coast of British Colombia and boasts dense and towering coastal rainforest.
Across the state, hundreds of small communities – primarily Alaska Native villages – are not connected to the road system. Accessible only by air, sea, river or winter trails, these communities maintain traditional subsistence lifestyles based on hunting, fishing and gathering food and other resources.
Meanwhile, the state’s coffers are enriched by money from oil and gas extraction – which are both primary sources of climate change, an irony that has not gone unnoticed by those struggling to craft long-term plans for Alaska.
With 6,640 miles of coastline, Alaska is an ocean-dependent state. Due to loss of sea ice that protects soft soils from seasonal storms, huge stretches of this coastline are washing into the Bering Sea. For communities at risk of erosion, all other concerns pale in comparison. At stake are not only structures and money, but also traditions, a sense of place, and even lives.

Thawing permafrost caused this buckling on the Alaska Highway.  

          

In Shishmaref, an Inupiat village with about 500 residents, homes have slipped off cliff edges and a hunter fell through thin ice. Relocation is costly and a last-ditch option.  On the coast of the Arctic Ocean, walruses, seals and polar bears are no longer finding the ice they need to rest, hunt, mate and breed. The shortening sea ice seasons are also threatening traditional hunting practices.
Even for inland residents, the health of the ocean is crucial, because the salmon caught in Alaska’s rivers fatten in the open ocean. Should climate change render the ocean too acidic due to changing atmospheric carbon, the tiny sea snails on which the salmon feed would be at risk because they may no longer be able to form their shells.

In the interior of the state, forest fires are burning bigger and hotter than in the past. The boreal forest system is dependent on the renewal of young vegetation after a burn. But with hotter, drier spring weather, sparks from dry lightning have torched millions more acres than usual. Neighborhoods have been evacuated, and dense palls of smoke have spread across the state.
Such fires also accelerate the other major inland change: permafrost thaw. On the newly soft, water-saturated ground, roads buckle and foundations fail as once-frozen soils slump and shift. Roads, runways and bridges can sustain costly damage. Here in Fairbanks, tilted and sinking homes are a common sight.
As organic soils thaw, they start to decay, which in turn releases carbon into the atmosphere. These carbon releases, which exacerbate climate change, are particularly potent in the form of methane bubbling from lakes.

Urban problems too

About half the population of Alaska lives in Anchorage. Here, livelihoods tend to be more urban, but recreation often depends on snow – snow that is not showing up.
The Iditarod sled dog race has had to move its starting line and reroute mushers. Tourism businesses are suffering. The city, like many communities around the state, is working on a climate change adaptation plan.
Meanwhile, around the state capital of Juneau and other Southeast Alaska communities, the mountains are losing their snow caps early and gaining them late. Water is flowing downstream out of season, which may impact everything from salmon stocks to hydroelectric power generation. Iconic yellow cedar trees are dying due to lack of protective snow cover on their roots.
Here, as elsewhere in the north, whole ecosystems are changing, putting some migratory birds such as eiders and some small Arctic mammals such as pikas and marmots at risk. Also threatened are lifestyles and livelihoods linked to Alaska’s caribou herds, which may be losing the lichen they need to survive.

The airstrip in Kivalina, an Alaska Native village, is in danger of being wiped out by erosion.

Mitigation, adaptation and change

Although mitigation of climate change via reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions is crucial, even the most optimistic scenarios include substantial shifts in temperature for many decades into the future. While adapting to this change is likely to be costly, failing to adapt will be costlier still.
Recognizing this, Alaska’s communities and land managers are taking action.
For the past year, a statewide plan has been in development. The University of Alaska and the municipality of Anchorage are creating a Climate Action Plan to address issues as diverse as invasive beetles, cultural loss and lack of skiing opportunities. For the village of Newtok, planning meant seeking federal funding for total relocation.

When a glacier at the heart of a National Park is rapidly melting, the thaw itself becomes part of the educational mission of the park. Federal agencies, including the National Park Service, the Department of Defense, the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service are working with my planning group and other partners to incorporate climate change into their visions of the future.

For those who live and work in Alaska, adapting to such profound changes in our state is hard. Failing to do so would likely be catastrophic.

 

EPA STUDY PROVES FRACKING CAN IMPACT DRINKING WATER

A long-awaited study by the EPA finds that fracking has "led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells".

After years of asserting that hydraulic fracturing has never tainted drinking water, the Obama administration issued a long-awaited study of the controversial oil and gas production technique that confirmed "specific instances" when fracking "led to impacts on drinking water resources, including contamination of drinking water wells." The conclusion was central to a nearly 1,000-page draft assessment issued, finally, onThursday by the Environmental Protection Agency to address public concerns about the possible effects of fracking on drinking water.
  In the past, top administration officials such as former EPA administrator Lisa Jackson and Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz maintained that there was no evidence fracking had fouled drinking water, despite findings to the contrary by EPA's own scientists in several highly publicized cases. The acknowledgment of instances of fracking-related contamination marks a notable reversal for the administration. "Today EPA confirmed what communities living with fracking have known for years: fracking pollutes drinking water," said Earthworks policy director Lauren Pagel. "Now the Trump administration, Congress and state governments should act on that information to protect our drinking water, and stop perpetuating the oil and gas industry's myth that fracking is safe."

EPA officials said the study is not meant to provide a comprehensive tally of water contamination incidents. There is no national database of the number of wells fracked or contamination incidents at oil and gas sites.
For 40 years, Congress and successive administrations have exempted the oil and gas sector from a host of federal pollution rules that would require detailed reporting of its activities. As a result, the report stitches together a piecemeal picture of fracking-related incidents. It relies on several case studies involving a handful of major incidents, such as a well blowout in Killdeer, N.D., that state regulators investigated. It also uses state data for possible contamination events, such as spills of fracking fluid at well pads, which EPA acknowledges provides a limited scope of the problem. "The spills occurred between January 2006 and April 2012 in 11 states and included 151 cases in which fracturing fluids or chemicals spilled on or near a well pad," the study said.

"This is a study of how we can best protect our water resources," said Dr. Thomas A. Burke, EPA's science adviser and deputy assistant administrator of the Office of Research and Development, which conducted the study. As far as fracking goes, Burke said during a press conference, "it's not a question of safe or unsafe." Launched five years ago at the behest of Congress, the water study was supposed to provide critical information about the method's safety "so that the American people can be confident that their drinking water is pure and uncontaminated," said a top EPA official at a 2011 hearing. But the report was delayed repeatedly, largely because the EPA failed to nail down a key component: a baseline, sampling of water before, during and after fracking. Such data would have allowed EPA researchers to gauge whether fracking affects water quality over time, and to provide best industry practices that protect drinking water. EPA had planned to conduct such research, but its efforts were stymied by oil and gas companies' unwillingness to allow EPA scientists to monitor their activities. As a result, the study does not offer enough new data about fracking's effects, said several scientists who research oil and gas development's impact on water.
Rather, the EPA report provides an overview of cases of fracking-related water pollution investigated by state regulators. "It's comprehensive in its treatment of the literature, but it's not very comprehensive in bringing new research or data from the field," said Robert Jackson, professor of environment and energy at Stanford University. "That's my biggest disappointment: They didn't do prospective studies, they didn't do well monitoring, they didn't do much field research. I don't feel like we have a lot of new information here." Despite its conclusion that fracking has not led to water contamination at every fracking site, the report nonetheless catalogues risks to drinking water at every step of the process: from acquiring water to use in stimulating the well and mixing the fracking chemicals with the water to constructing wells, injecting the fracking fluid into the well, and handling of fracking waste water that flows back up the well. The risks are ever present.

Further, the study confirmed problems that independent researchers have identified over the last five years in peer-reviewed scientific literature. The EPA cited the high number of chemical spills on well pads in places such as Colorado, where fracking fluid could leach into the water table. It confirmed the migration of methane into some people's drinking water in Pennsylvania. Moreover, it noted that oil and gas companies, especially in the West, frack in underground sources of drinking water––or formations where pockets of water and hydrocarbons weave through each other.
Industry has denied such types of fracking. But Jackson and his Stanford colleague Dominic DiGiulio presented research at a conference last year that said oil and gas companies are fracking at much shallower depths than widely believed, sometimes through the underground water sites. The issues with fracking contamination will increase with the expected expansion in fracking for oil and gas unless legislation is passed to control abuses and regulate fracking processes.