YP Letters: So where does fracking's waste water end up?

From: Michael Farman, Willow Grove, Beverley.
Third Energy's fracking site at Kirby Misperton.Third Energy's fracking site at Kirby Misperton.
Third Energy's fracking site at Kirby Misperton.

IN response to Paul Funder’s letter (The Yorkshire Post, March 2), I can’t tell him where all the water required for fracking will come from, but according to industry figures, anything from five to 80 per cent of the amount used will be returned to the surface as “flowback”. So much depends on the geology.

So plenty of waste water could remain in the ground, but the flowback must be either stored on the site, re-injected into existing wells, or transported across the country to processing plants to have the toxic and radioactive components removed.

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Another of your contributors is right when he says we have different rules and safety standards from the US.

True, comprehensive 
and detailed regulations exist here, but the problem is in enforcing them.

Both the Environment 
Agency and the Health and Safety Executive have admitted that they will have to rely heavily on self-reporting from the fracking industry, which doesn’t have an impressive record for confessing to problems or failures when profits are involved.