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Letters: Doubts about the frackologist

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Re “Patt Morrison Asks: Mark Zoback, frackologist,” April 23

I was surprised to read Mark Zoback’s position on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”

He states that we need to make sure “industry follows best practices, that we have good regulations in place, and those regulations are enforced.”

But he admits that “regulations are often neglected or abused, and that neglect manifests itself in dramatic accidents [like] Deepwater Horizon.”

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A statewide moratorium on fracking will provide California the time to address the environmental, hydrological, geophysical, atmospheric and political concerns.

This is not a scaretactic; it is a reasoned response to an industry that has a track record of not being environmentally self-regulated.

A moratorium will give independent scientists the opportunity to gather the necessary information regarding both the positive and negative impacts of hydraulic fracturing.

Steve Yaffee
Long Beach

This was a very good interview. The end is the most revealing: “Sunlight is a great disinfectant … the industry benefits very little from keeping things proprietary.”
Really! I find that the oil industry consistently refuses to divulge the “recipe” of chemicals it mixes with water to fracture a well, citing that it is proprietary.

Gene E. Schwartz

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San Diego

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