After weeks of apprehension, the Environmental Protection Agency reversed itself and will step in to supply drinking water to residents of Dimock, PA, a de facto acknowledgment that fracking led to contamination of the water supply in this town along the Delaware River Basin.

Dimock, PA, home to dozens of fracking wells and featured in the movie Gasland, experienced massive contamination with their water supply. Cabot Oil & Gas, the main fracking company, provided free water to the residents, under an order from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection. But with a new governor, PA DEP let Cabot stop the water shipments. At first, the federal EPA said it would provide water, but then the EPA canceled the delivery. What now?

I’m saving my “What to Look for in 2012″ listicle for tomorrow, but one of the issues that may not make the list, but which is terribly important, is the battle in the states over hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. 2011 was the year when this issue finally bubbled up to the surface (pardon the pun) and into the consciousness of the public. The critically acclaimed Gasland came out in 2010, but anti-facking forces benefited this year from some scientific revelations. Independent studies for the first time identified fracking as a cause of methane contamination and water pollution, and late in the year, the EPA agreed in a case in Wyoming.

For the first time, government scientists concluded that hydraulic fracturing, the process of shooting massive quantities of water and chemicals into rock to release natural gas, contaminates drinking water. The study concerns an incident in Pavillion, Wyoming, and culminates three years of research of the local aquifer.

Houston-based Cabot Oil & Gas Corp. ended delivery of bulk and bottled water to 11 families in Dimock on Wednesday. Cabot asserts Dimock’s water is safe to drink and won permission from state environmental regulators last month to stop paying for water for the residents.

A judge on Wednesday declined to issue an emergency order compelling Cabot to continue the deliveries. The judge, who sits on the state’s Environmental Hearing Board, set a Dec. 7 deadline for arguments on a second, related petition filed by lawyers for the families.

There are two flashpoints coming up on the Keystone XL pipeline: Nebraska is holding a session today to consider how it might force the pipeline sponsors to reroute the pipeline away from the giant Agallala Aquifer. On November 6, Bill McKibben’s group has organized an effort to surround the White House in protest.

Alabama’s immigration law, which is as punitive as Arizona’s SB1070 and which has been partially validated by a conservative federal judge, has already generated some harrowing implications for residents of the state. The latest consequence comes from a public water company in the city of Allgood.

Here in this age of austerity, it’s fashionable to point out that the world just doesn’t work the way it did when John Maynard Keynes was the talk of the town. You just can’t find any shovel-ready projects, so weighted are they by environmental impact reports and the other red tape of 21st century life. But this neglects an entire area where construction work is needed: maintenance. I know from living in Los Angeles that there are enough potholes to keep a small army of workers in business year-round.

Just as we are deaf to the wisdom of water, it is
no accident that we are deaf to ourselves and to nature.
We are mostly water ourselves; so it is no wonder
our bodies are failing. Water is where we came from.

This is the first time I’ve seen Japanese officials admit that any radiation existed above recommended levels, if only for infants. Older children and adults are supposedly OK. In fact, they’re still trying to say that any water consumed prior to this point by babies is fine. But they are cautioning against it now because of the presence of cancer-causing radioactive iodine. And that’s in Tokyo – 150 miles from Fukushima.