http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2015/07/05/fracking-oil-gas-h...

Amazing that an editorial board took this position, but maybe facts are finally winning the battle.

Huge new natural gas supplies have helped lower prices, fuel a manufacturing turnaround and displace much dirtier coal in electricity production, cutting air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

All that said, the EPA report does validate fears that fracking can be a serious hazard if done sloppily. Like conventional wells, fracked wells have to pass through groundwater on their way to oil and gas zones that can be a mile or more below the deepest groundwater. Wells must be secured with casing and cement that keep fracking fluids, oil and gas from escaping into drinking water, but the EPA found scattered instances where inadequate casing or a bad cement job allowed natural gas and chemicals to get into groundwater.

Drilling for oil and gas is complicated and challenging, but safe drilling and production practices have been known for decades. Drillers have learned that the price for sloppiness can be catastrophic, as with the Deepwater Horizon blowout in the Gulf of Mexico five years ago, which just cost BP a settlement for nearly $19 billion.

Ultimately, it's up to the industry to show that the considerable rewards from fracking justify the sort of risks the EPA study identified. So far, that's what has happened.