EPA Fails to Find Fracking Flaws

Yet again, but they keep trying:

EPA: Fracking doesn’t harm drinking water

In a major blow to environmental activists, the Obama administration said Thursday that the controversial drilling technique known as fracking has not caused any widespread impacts on drinking water, removing a key argument among those who want to limit U.S. oil-and-gas development.

The Environmental Protection Agency study, while identifying “potential vulnerabilities” in the fracking process that could affect water supplies, debunked the claim that the drilling practice is contaminating drinking water all across the country and represents a fundamental danger to clean water.

“From our assessment, we conclude there are above and below ground mechanisms by which hydraulic fracturing activities have the potential to impact drinking water resources … These mechanisms include water withdrawals in times of, or in areas with, low water availability; spills of hydraulic fracturing fluids and produced water; fracturing directly into underground drinking water resources; below ground migration of liquids and gases; and inadequate treatment and discharge of wastewater,” the report reads in part, before coming to its central conclusion.

Sounds pretty bad, right. But there's a big but . . .

“We did not find evidence that these mechanisms have led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources in the United States,” the study says.

In other words, EPA and environmental activists spun up a cloud of but-what-ifs about fracking, hoping to shut it down, but the evidence has failed to find support them.  Their real reason for wanting to shut down fracking is to make conventional energy sources scarce and expensive enough that their favored, expensive, intermittent and inefficient wind and solar power will become "viable."