Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. has been delivering water to homes in the northeast village of Dimock since January of 2009. The Houston-based energy company asked the Department of Environmental Protection for approval to stop the water deliveries by the end of November, saying Dimock's water is safe to drink.

. . .

Residents who are suing Cabot in federal court say their water is still tainted with unsafe levels of methane and possibly other contaminants from the drilling process. They say DEP had no right to allow Cabot to stop paying for replacement water.

Bill Ely, 60, said the water coming out of his well looks like milk.

"You put your hand down a couple of inches and you can't see your hand, that's how much gas there is in it. And they're telling me it was that way all my life," said Ely, who has lived in the family homestead for nearly 50 years and said his well water was crystal clear until Cabot's arrival three years ago.

By the way, you can get the MSDS on all fraccing chemicals provided you know their trade names (Haliburton's proprietary cross-linker and breaker setup goes by Vicon). They've got some pretty nasty and distinctive materials in there. It wouldn't be a hard sell to say that titanium in those concentrations shouldn't be there, especially if there's not a lot of naturally occurring titanium in the area.

Warning! Flammable liquid and vapor. Causes respiratory tract irritation. May cause central nervous system depression. Causes severe eye irritation. This substance has caused adverse reproductive and fetal effects in humans. Causes moderate skin irritation. May cause liver, kidney and heart damage.
Target Organs: Kidneys, heart, central nervous system, liver.
Potential Health Effects
Eye Contact: Causes severe eye irritation. May cause painful sensitization to light. May cause chemical conjunctivitis and corneal damage.
Skin Contact: Causes moderate skin irritation. May cause cyanosis of the extremities.
Ingestion: May cause gastrointestinal irritation with nausea, vomiting and diarrhea. May cause systemic toxicity with acidosis. May cause central nervous system depression, characterized by excitement, followed by headache, dizziness, drowsiness, and nausea. Advanced stages may cause collapse, unconsciousness, coma and possible death due to respiratory failure.
Inhalation: Inhalation of high concentrations may cause central nervous system effects characterized by nausea, headache, dizziness, unconsciousness and coma. Causes respiratory tract irritation. May cause narcotic effects in high concentration. Vapors may cause dizziness or suffocation.
Chronic Exposure: May cause reproductive and fetal effects. Laboratory experiments have resulted in mutagenic effects. Animal studies have reported the development of tumors. Prolonged exposure may cause liver, kidney, and heart damage.

Not to take away from your point, but keep in mind that MSDS's should be read with some degree of care. As an example, anyone care to guess which chemical has this in its MSDS?

Pfff, ethanol, of course!

have you seen MSDS for caffeine?

I have now!

... but this is something of a bugbear of mine. Because of the above^^^ any laboratory kit component that contains ethanol now gets listed as a potential carcinogen in its MSDS. It's people just covering their asses, but it makes it near-impossible to tell from the MSDS which stuff is actually seriously dangerous, and which is stuff that should just be treated with the standard level of caution.

Sorry for the derailment. I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

I have now!

... but this is something of a bugbear of mine. Because of the above^^^ any laboratory kit component that contains ethanol now gets listed as a potential carcinogen in its MSDS. It's people just covering their asses, but it makes it near-impossible to tell from the MSDS which stuff is actually seriously dangerous, and which is stuff that should just be treated with the standard level of caution.

Sorry for the derailment. I now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.