LTLFTcomposite wrote:Why would a house (that doesn't use groundwater - directly) go up 11% by virtue of being in 1.25 mile proximity to fracking? To house the frackers?
After reading the piece and scanning the 'study', it appears they isolated a single factor - source of water - in order to directly compare property value changes. There's enough documentation now that drilling/fracturing does negatively affect local water. Down here, there doesn't seem to be a distinction, because it's hard to find rural or semi-rural property that doesn't rely on ground water - and that's where most of the wells are drilled.
http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/08/ ... -concerns/
In 2011, Texas used a greater number of barrels of water for oil and natural gas fracking (about 632 million) than the number of barrels of oil it produced (about 441 million), according to figures from the Texas Water Development Board and the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator.
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com ... uth-texas/
From January 2011 through May 2013, hydraulic fracturing producers in the Eagle Ford used about 19 billion gallons of water for 4,300-plus wells, the highest water use of any shale basin in the country...
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FWIW - the copy of the paper was not listed as 'published' or peer reviewed. It appears to have been authored at the behest of the 'non-partisan' National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) and Resources for the Future (RFF). Sourcewatch suggests NBER has slanted 'right' (anti-tax, free market) since the 1980s. The RFF appears to be more in favor of the environment; no idea if the two organization's positions balance each other.
http://public.econ.duke.edu/~timmins/w18390.pdf
While shale gas development can result in rapid local economic development, negative externalities
associated with the process may adversely affect the prices of nearby homes. We utilize a triple-difference
estimator and exploit the public water service area boundary in Washington County, Pennsylvania
to identify the housing capitalization of groundwater risk, differentiating it from other externalities,
lease payments to homeowners, and local economic development. We find that proximity to wells
increases housing values, though risks to groundwater fully offset those gains. By itself, groundwater
risk reduces property values by up to 24 percent.
http://www.nber.org/
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... c_Research
http://www.rff.org/Pages/default.aspx
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?ti ... the_Future
Earthworks' article on the paper has links to info from other areas as well.
http://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/ ... 3vLAvldXpA