Halliburton CEO Instructs Underling To Sip New Fracking Fluid At Gas Industry Conference

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
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Halliburton Chief Executive Officer Dave Lesar touted the safety of the companyโ€™s new CleanStim fracking fluid during a keynote address at a gas industry conference in Colorado earlier this month. Lesar was so confident in the safety of CleanStim, he was willing to drink it. Er, not exactly. He didnโ€™t imbibe himself, but handed the fracking fluid over to one of his underlings, an unnamed Halliburton executive, who took a โ€œswigโ€ of the fracking fluid according to the Associated Press report filed tonight.

Although Halliburton acknowledges that CleanStim is โ€œnot intended for human consumption,โ€ it boasts that the new fracking fluid is made with โ€œingredients from the food industry.โ€

The โ€œexecutive drinks own chemicalโ€ trick shows that Halliburton is clearly stepping up its PR game in the face of growing public concern over the controversial fracking process.

It is great that Halliburton has created a supposedly safe fracking fluid, donโ€™t get me wrong. But CleanStim isnโ€™t the formula that is in widespread use at gas fracking operations around the country right now. The public still has no clue about the exact formulas the industry is using currently (because the industry doesnโ€™t want the public to know). But what little information we do have is that most current formulas are likely to contain a laundry list of cancer-causing chemicals.

We donโ€™t hear about gas industry executives drinking the current chemical cocktail during PR stunts, yet they assure us that it is all safe, of course. Forgive the residents of communities whose drinking water has become tainted due to gas drilling operations if they donโ€™t take Mr. Lesarโ€™s stunt seriously.

As an EDF staffer put it in the Associated Press article, โ€œa homeowner in Pennsylvania doesnโ€™t have the option of having an underling drink his water. He has to do itย himself.โ€

Brendan DeMelle DeSmog
Brendan is Executive Director of DeSmog. He is also a freelance writer and researcher specializing in media, politics, climate change and energy. His work has appeared in Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Grist, The Washington Times and other outlets.

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