Gas Industrial Complex Series: Speech suppression against scientists becoming standard operating procedure

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Dr. Conrad VolzFor more than a year the gas industry has been at war with those raising concerns about the hydraulic fracturing process. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as many know it, is a process where large quanties of a water/chemical mixture are injected at high pressures into the ground to get at previously inaccessible gas pockets.

For nearly a year the Checks and Balances Project has reported on several individuals whose reputations and careers have been put in jeopardy following studies that reflected poorly on the gas industry. Many of these individuals have gained national attention for their findings.

Dr. Conrad Volz, former University of Pittsburgh Professor, resigned after the school pressured him to be quiet.

In the spring of 2011 Volz, a public health expert with the University of Pittsburgh testified before a congressional hearing on hydraulic fracturing in Washington, DC. In that hearing Volz was the lone voice for concern after the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s Director led congressional members to believe that water contamination from fracking had never happened in Colorado.

During that same hearing Volz presented findings of a two-year study he led at the University of Pittsburgh. That study found that that the huge amount of chemicals from fracking waste water that had been dumped into Pennsylvania’s waterways had caused the deaths of wildlife.

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