Editor,

I read the Letter to the Editor on Hydraulic Fracturing in Friday’s paper and was once again dismayed by the lack of knowledge exhibited by the author on the topic, a problem that seems to be peculiarly prevalent among those opposed to natural gas development.

Since each of the alleged negative effects of the development of natural gas addressed in the letter would take an entire page or more to clarify I would like to address just one today: Earthquakes!

Earthquakes are actually associated with disposal wells which are used in some states to dispose of many types of industrial wastes. These wells differ significantly from a hydraulically fractured natural gas well. They are designed to have large volumes of fluid pumped into them over a long period of time without flow back and the formations chosen for disposal wells are picked for their ability to accept high volumes of waste.