Gary Lash of SUNY Fredonia on fracking

At The Observer, in Dunkirk, NY, via MDN:
 

..."I have to admit that I am not surprised by the overwhelming response to the recently ended comment period," said Gary G. Lash, Department of Geosciences Professor at SUNY Fredonia and Director of the SUNY Fredonia Shale Research Institute. "Sadly, this entire process has been strong on the political side and woefully weak on scientific discussion. I have no problem with whatever side of the debate a person falls on, yet too much of the discussion has been grounded in fear"...
 

"...fractures are not going to migrate far from the zone of interest, the Marcellus," he said. "The upshot of this is that it is extremely unlikely that artificially induced fractures would propagate high enough to interact with a water table. The vertical migration of the very dense fluid, which even after the addition of a great amount of fresh water via the fracing process may have a salinity of in the range of 250 plus parts per thousand (the normal salinity of sea water is 35 parts per thousand), is difficult to imagine"...
 

Read the whole thing.