YP Letters: Fracking: Look at research, decide for yourself

LORRAINE Allanson’s latest attempts to discredit Frack Free Ryedale and Friends of the Earth are unwarranted and inaccurate (The Yorkshire Post, January 25).

As regards the FoE advertisement, the organisation did not ‘concede’, and no final ruling on the case was ever given by the ASA. There is, however, clear and irrefutable evidence that fracking ‘can contaminate water at every stage of the fracking process’, as the US Environmental Protection Agency concluded in the final draft of their report on the impact of fracking on drinking water.

The shale gas industry still relies on the conclusions of one favourable, but embarrassingly outdated, report by the Royal Society, which dates back to 2012.

However, more than 80 per cent of all published peer-reviewed research into fracking has been published since the Royal Society report, and 84 per cent of the studies on health showed that there were ‘potential public health risks or actual adverse health outcomes’.

Mrs Allanson may try to promote her Trump-esque ‘alternative facts’ about fracking being 100 per cent safe all she likes. At Frack Free Ryedale, we are content to point people to the most recent research and allow them to decide for themselves.