Dec 30, 2016 2 min read

In her recent letter to the editor, Energy In Depth director Jackie Stewart followed the industry playbook of accusing every reputable scientist doing peer-reviewed research on fracking of being an activist and, therefore, biased.

In other words, Stewart is suggesting there is no reputable science to back up the claims that fracking poses health risks to people, particularly children. She claims that the author of a recent letter to the Observer-Reporter, “… fails to identify a single reputable, peer-reviewed study by an unbiased source to back up this claim.”

She goes on to refer to one report out of the Environmental Protection Agency that points to reductions in air toxics. In the dissembling fashion characteristic of Energy In Depth, Stewart makes a careless connection between an EPA air toxics assessment and fracking, a connection the EPA does not make. The assessment itself is full of limitations stated on the agency’s website with this statement, “EPA suggests that the results of this assessment be used cautiously, as the overall quality and uncertainties of the assessment will vary from location to location as well as from pollutant to pollutant.”

Inventing causality would not fall under the category of using the assessment cautiously, and is something a professional working for an organization that claims education to be among its goals would never do.

Meanwhile, back in the real world of credible experts and science, the amount of peer-reviewed research on fracking has continued grow to more than 900 studies. Among those Stewart imagines are activists are some leading researchers, public health researchers, and the health department of New York, whose staffers spent more than 4,000 hours compiling its report to Gov. Andrew Cuomo. That’s opposed to the number of seconds it took Stewart to make her false link between the EPA assessment and fracking.

Karen Feridun

Kutztown

Feridun is the founder of the group Berks Gas Truth.