Quote:
Originally Posted by Spexxvet
Do you trust these government regulators?
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I do... but only for what it's worth in the exact wording of the EPA statements.
I have not seen this EPA report, but I read somewhere that they were
testing only for certain
specific fracking-additives in the ground water.
For those tests, I would believe the specific data values obtained
and those values being below EPA's "maximum allowable limits".
This would then allow EPA to state their tests "did not show levels
of contamination that could present a health concern."
This statement does
not say the values were zero or non-detectable
Beyond that, there might be additives for which EPA did not test, or
toxic levels that are below the limits EPA now considers to be safe.
Likewise, they may not have tested all appropriate water sources.
(The unknown boogeyman argument.)
I feel EPA is generally what you want in a governmental agency.
That is, their actions are based heavily on scientific sampling, testing and lab assays, etc.
From my experience interacting with EPA , they are pretty "unbiased".
Also, they are subject to public hearings and inputs, so there is a "real world" link in their actions.
Compared with agencies (such as the Dept of Agriculture) that
have missions "to promote...", I put EPA at a pretty high level of authenticity.
Industry and business don't always have the same opinions of EPA.
Remember the politicians who pledged to voters they would "get rid of EPA" ?
The other side of industry is, if EPA says it's OK then it's OK,
regardless of some lab data values being above zero.