Bakken Fracking Is Safe -- UND Geology Professor

A big "thank you" to a reader for sending this my way. 

The Grand Forks Herald is reporting:

On June 30, Dexter Perkins wrote about the “serious health and environmental risks” caused by hydraulic fracturing or fracking (column, Page C4).

Perkins and I are faculty members in geology and geological engineering at UND; however, my comments in this column do not reflect the official position of UND.

My educational and research backgrounds are in hydrogeology, groundwater monitoring and water quality analysis. With that in mind, I’d like to clarify several points Perkins made about fracking in North Dakota and its risk to groundwater quality.
Perkins gave four sites as examples of what could happen with fracking in North Dakota: 1) Pavillion, Wyo.; 2) Geauga County, Ohio; 3) Dimcock, Pa.; and 4) Parker County, Texas.

Whether fracking caused problems at these sites is hotly debated; I encourage Herald readers to go online and read the arguments. But what’s not obvious in the online rhetoric is how some of the geological characteristics of these four sites highlight why North Dakota’s oil patch is a more favorable setting for fracking.

Go to the link for the full argument, but the author sums up:

To sum up, North Dakota has an excellent geological setting for fracking. The fracking zone is deeper than for the sites mentioned by Perkins, and our potable groundwater supplies are isolated from fracking zones by greater thicknesses of low-permeable shale.

With our unique geology and a proactive regulatory framework, properly enforced, fracking in the Bakken/Three Forks Formations does not put our groundwater at serious risk.