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Hydraulic fracturing—“fracking”—involves pumping water mixed with sand and chemicals deep underground to create cracks in a shale formation to allow oil or natural gas to be recovered. Concern has been raised that these cracks will allow the fracking chemicals and/or methane gas to contaminate the groundwater near the fracking operation. Two recent studies dispel this concern.

The Department of Energy released a report finding that fracking chemicals and gas are not migrating up through the rock to groundwater. This report followed an 18-month study of fracking ...