This is the response I received(astonishingly fast) after writing an email inquiring about the total figure of drinking water contamination cases:
"Thanks for your email. To clarify--the purpose of the study was not to count every instance of impacts to drinking water resources. The purpose was to follow the water and to better understand the potential vulnerabilities. In the draft assessment we looked at all the hydraulic fracturing activities that may have had potential impacts to drinking water resources and make mention of specific events throughout the chapters that serve as examples and illustrate vulnerabilities.
Based upon the information brought together for the assessment – information drawn from over 950 citations– we did not identify widespread impacts on drinking water resources due to hydraulic fracturing operations. The information available is adequate to qualitatively characterize the frequency of occurrence as being small, particularly relative to the number of wells that are hydraulically fractured each year. That same information, however, is not sufficient to quantitatively measure occurrence nationwide. That was one of the information gaps highlighted by the assessment.
I hope this is helpful!
Dayna
202-564-7983
gibbons.dayna@epa.gov
Communications
Office of Research and Development
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency"
So they would have you believe that they don't know how often it happens, however, they do know it doesn't happen often.
Yeah, this is the type of science, no fuck that, pseudo-science, that leads to dubious legislation.