A
three-year study undertaken by the state-funded University of Cincinnati will
not be released to the public, because it found no damage at all. This
direct contradiction of the goals of many environmentalist groups had to be
suppressed. As the lead
researcher said:
I am really sad to say this, but some of our funders, the groups
that had given us funding in the past, were a little disappointed in our
results. They feel that fracking is scary and so they were hoping this data
could to a reason to ban it[.]
This
is a scandal that goes to the heart of the relationship between science and
public policy and the reliability of global warming doomsayers. The
scandal was broken in a small town newspaper, the Free Press-Standard of
Carroll County, Ohio and only gradually made its way to the national media via
Jeff Stier of the National Center
for Public Policy Research, Newsweek,
and Jazz Shaw of Hot
Air.
As Stier wrote at Newsweek:
Geologists at the University of Cincinnati just wrapped up a
three-year investigation of hydraulic fracturing and its impact on local water
supplies.
As Russell Cook, a
citizen-journalist, has detailed, the global warming fraudsters inevitably
revert to the charge that scientists who question their theory are in the
pocket of the “fossil fuel industry,” a charge based on no substance at all and
is actually 180 degrees different from reality. With billions of
dollars annually spent of “global warming research” that hands to
governments enormous power to tax and regulate all economic activity (that
depends on energy), the gravy train is on the warmist side. Develop a computer
program to explain away the embarrassing failure of data to conform to theiry,
and you will be lavished research funds, invited to conferences in exotic
locales, and put up at five-star hotels.
We
have in Ohio a smoking gun on the repression of one side of the
controversy. I hope that the Ohio State Legislature will conduct an
investigation:
Rep. Andy Thompson, R-Marrietta, whose district includes
Carroll, Harrison and Belmont counties, is calling for the university to
release its findings. Thompson noted the study received state funding in the
form of an $85,714 grant from the Ohio Board or Regents and federal funding
from the national Science Foundation for an isotope ratio mass spectrometer.
“It is unacceptable that taxpayers have funded this important
groundwater study and the findings are being kept from the public,” said
Thompson. “UC still has not produced a full report of their findings, nor has
the university issued a press release of their results. Yet, during the course
of the past few years, the university has released countless advisories on the
multi-year Groundwater Research of Ohio study. I am calling on the University
of Cincinnati Department of Geology to release their full findings surrounding
this study immediately. The people of Ohio have funded and deserve to know that
private water wells in shale counties have not been impacted.”
Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2016/04/public_university_admits_to_burying_study_finding_no_damage_to_water_quality_from_fracking_because_funders_disappointed.html#ixzz478sLaluRFollow us: @AmericanThinker on Twitter | AmericanThinker on Facebook