Hydraulic fracturing – pumping water and chemicals deep underground to bring oil and natural gas to the surface – is one of the most controversial environmental issues in the U.S. today.Join us Thursday, Jan. 30, for a stimulating lecture on this important environmental topic.
The lecture — ‘Fracking: What We Know and Don’t Know About its Impacts on Water’ — will be presented by Dr. Robert Jackson, an environmental scientist at Stanford and Duke universities. Jackson and Duke colleagues published the first peer-reviewed scientific papers on fracking and drinking water quality.
So far, that research in Pennsylvania has not found the direct pollution of water wells by drilling fluids and brackish waste water that fracking’s critics fear. The research has, however, found significant evidence of natural gas contamination in water wells near gas wells.
The lecture will be at 7 p.m. in the Student Center of the University of Minnesota’s St. Paul campus. It is part of a speaker series sponsored by the Freshwater Society and the university’s College of Biological Sciences.Register to attend. Learn more about the speaker series and view video of previous lectures. Read a short q-and-a interview with Dr. Jackson about fracking.
Is there a lecturer you would like to hear, or a subject you would like addressed? Send us your suggestions.