--- title: New Study Indicates That Surface Spills and Other Mistakes Pose a Higher Risk in Shale Gas Drilling Than Fracking description: If you were trying to invent with a term that sounds as scary as possible, you couldn't do better than "fracking." That's industry terminology for... canonical: https://time.com/archive/7219944/shale-gas-its-not-the-fracking-that-might-be-the-problem-its-everything-else/ author: TIME Staff article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2012-02-17T10:00:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-03-18T15:03:20.164Z article:section: Science og:title: New Study Indicates That Surface Spills and Other Mistakes Pose a Higher Risk in Shale Gas Drilling Than Fracking og:description: If you were trying to invent with a term that sounds as scary as possible, you couldn't do better than "fracking." That's industry terminology for... og:url: https://time.com/archive/7219944/shale-gas-its-not-the-fracking-that-might-be-the-problem-its-everything-else/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte31c75cefdbbecd8/6998b61125f3ee536b642c2e/fracking_0217.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 600 og:image:height: 338 og:image:alt: fracking_0217 og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: New Study Indicates That Surface Spills and Other Mistakes Pose a Higher Risk in Shale Gas Drilling Than Fracking twitter:description: If you were trying to invent with a term that sounds as scary as possible, you couldn't do better than "fracking." That's industry terminology for... twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blte31c75cefdbbecd8/6998b61125f3ee536b642c2e/fracking_0217.jpg?branch=production&width=600&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  * [Science](/section/science/) # Shale Gas: It's Not the Fracking That Might Be the Problem. It's Everything Else > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Future Proof: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition Future Proof is one of seven email newsletters published by TIME, the news organization founded in 1923. Making sense of the climate and energy economy. Future Proof examines the forces transforming energy and climate, and what those changes mean for business, technology, policy and the global economy. 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Future Proof covers climate and energy as an economic and business story rather than only an environmental one. It publishes every Friday and is free at time.com/newsletters. #### Who writes Future Proof? Justin Worland, a senior correspondent at TIME and an award-winning climate journalist, writes Future Proof. #### Is Future Proof free? Yes. Future Proof is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-futureproof-2026q3/newsletters?i=7b26e592-a402-4fbd-be44-d0673fd532ae&cr=time-nl-futureproof-2026q3-v1) by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Feb 17, 2012 10:00 AM UTC  Men with Cabot Oil and Gas work on a natural gas valve at a hydraulic fracturing site on Jan. 18, 2012 in South Montrose, Pennsylvania. Men with Cabot Oil and Gas work on a natural gas valve at a hydraulic fracturing site on Jan. 18, 2012 in South Montrose, Pennsylvania. Spencer Plat t/ Getty Images by [TIME Staff](https://time.com/author/time-staff/) Feb 17, 2012 10:00 AM UTC If you were trying to invent with a term that sounds as scary as possible, you couldn’t do better than “fracking.” That’s industry terminology for hydraulic fracturing, the process used to get at unconventional natural gas and oil contained in tight rock layers that need to be cracked open—or fractured—so drillers can get at the good stuff inside. For environmentalists and activists who worry about the impact of shale gas and oil drilling, though, fracking has become a[ one-word slogan](http://frackno.com/), a term that just sounds like an epithet—and, if you’re a _Battlestar Galactica_ fan, [actually is one](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7KcpgQKo2I). (So say we all.) The energy industry has come to [hate the term](http://www.accuchinesmanufacturing.com/a-few-reasons-why-the-energy-industry-hates-the-word-fracking/), but it’s here to stay. **Video:** [The Fuss Over Fracking: The Dilemma of a New Gas Boom](http://www.time.com/time/video/player/0,32068,876880045001%5F2062814,00.html) Yet there’s some evidence that while fracking sounds dangerous, the documented damage from shale gas exploitation isn’t coming from the frack so much, as it is from the other parts of the drilling and producing process. [A study by the Energy Institute at the University of Texas-Austin](http://energy.utexas.edu/)—and released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which is happening, weirdly, in Canada—found no direct connection between the process of hydraulic fracturing and reports of groundwater contamination. Instead, researchers concluded that the problems associated with fracking tend to be due to mistakes made in other parts of the drilling process, like casing failures that allow drilling fluids and gas to escape from a well, poor cement jobs and spills on the surface. “These problems are not unique to hydraulic fracturing,” Charles Groat, an Energy Institute associate director and the lead author of the study, [said in a statement](http://www.eurekalert.org/pub%5Freleases/2012-02/teia-nss021012.php). more **MORE:** [**Could Shale Gas Power the World?**](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2062456,00.html?iid=pw-sci) The Energy Institute researchers looked at three formations where fracking is being done: the Barnett Shale in North Texas, the Haynesville Shale in western Louisiana and northeast Texas and the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, New York and parts of Appalachia (where I spent time last year). The study didn’t find any confirmed cases of drinking water contamination that occurred because of pathways beneath the ground opened up by fracking, but that’s not surprising. With [the exception](http://fuelfix.com/blog/2012/02/01/epa-official-defends-pavillion-fracturing-study/) of one recent Environmental Protection Agency study of drinking water near shale gas wells in Wyoming, no one has found definitive evidence of fracking chemicals moving via underground fractures into groundwater. But that doesn’t mean shale gas drilling is problem free. Far from it, as Environmental Defense Fund’s Scott Anderson [pointed out in a post](http://blogs.edf.org/energyexchange/2012/02/16/if-the-problem-isnt-hydraulic-fracturing-then-what-is/) on the study: --- > “” --- **MORE:** [**The Sierra Club and Shale Gas**](http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/02/02/exclusive-how-the-sierra-club-took-millions-from-the-natural-gas-industry-and-why-they-stopped/) The study makes sense to me. Fracking sounds scary, and the idea of using a small amount of explosives and chemicals to open up fractures in rock thousands of feet below the surface just seems like invitation for disaster. But—as the [gas industry itself argues](http://frack.mixplex.com/content/energy-depth)—groundwater is usually fairly close to the surface, while shale gas is thousands of feet beneath. The chance of a fracture somehow reaching from the shale layer to the groundwater level seems physically unlikely. But gas drilling is a dirty, difficult business, and things can and do go wrong at or near the surface. That’s not necessarily an indictment of the entire shale gas industry, but the reality is that drilling is an industrial process, and mistakes happen all the time. (See the blowout [now ongoing](http://www.adn.com/2012/02/15/2319427/exploratory-well-blows-on-north.html) on a North Shore oil well in Alaska.) It’s one thing if those mistakes are happening in lightly populated areas in the West or in Alaska, where the oil and gas business is a way of life and the number of people who might be affected by a spill is relatively low. (Though, as ProPublica’s Abraham Lustgarten has pointed out in his [posts about the Pavilion case](http://www.hcn.org/issues/43.11/hydrofracked-one-mans-quest-for-answers-about-natural-gas-drilling/print%5Fview), hardly nonexistent.) But Pennsylvania and New York—where the local opposition to fracking has been hottest—are far more densely populated, which means any of those drilling mistakes will be felt by more people. It’s not just what’s happening that’s feeding the controversy over fracking—it’s where. The debate over fracking and shale gas is far from over, with President Obama hyping the potential of natural gas even as the Interior Department [takes tentative steps](http://www.upi.com/Business%5FNews/Energy-Resources/2012/02/15/Salazar-hints-at-fracking-disclosure/UPI-96491329309020/) towards tougher regulations of the practice. All of which means we can look forward to more fracking debates. For frack’s sake. **MORE:** [**Fracked: The Debate Over Shale Gas Deepens**](http://ecocentric.blogs.time.com/2012/01/20/fracked-the-debate-over-shale-gas-deepens/) ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7219944/shale-gas-its-not-the-fracking-that-might-be-the-problem-its-everything-else/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/archive/7219944/shale-gas-its-not-the-fracking-that-might-be-the-problem-its-everything-else/"},"headline":"Shale Gas: It's Not the Fracking That Might Be the Problem. 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