Lead author of fracking study is a member of industry board

July 30, 2012 at 12:00a.m.

McClatchy Tribune

AUSTIN, Texas

The lead author of a recent University of Texas study that suggested that hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking, does not contaminate groundwater is a paid board member and shareholder in a company that engages in the practice, a situation that critics are calling a conflict of interest and of which the researcher’s supervisors were unaware.

“The report was presented as if it was an independent study of fracking when, in fact, the study was led by a gas industry insider,” said Kevin Connor, the director of the nonprofit Public Accountability Initiative in Buffalo, N.Y., which reported the researcher’s role.

Charles “Chip” Groat, who led a study released in February by UT’s Energy Institute, billed the university-funded report as an independent look at the process of shale-gas harvesting, a controversial process that has increased in recent years.

Groat, who did not respond to messages from the Austin American- Statesman, has been on Houston-based Plains Exploration & Production Co.’s board for several years. Groat was paid $413,900 in cash and stock by the company in 2011, according to Securities and Exchange Commission filings reviewed by the Statesman, more than twice his salary from the university, and holds almost $1.6 million in the company’s stock.

UT officials on Monday said they recently found out about Groat’s role with the oil and gas company — after Bloomberg News asked them about it in the past month — and said Groat should have disclosed it when releasing the study. But the university does not consider his role a potential conflict of interest or scientific misconduct because Groat only “reviewed the summary of findings and made no substantial changes in what was put together by the researchers,” said Charlie Cook, deputy director of the Energy Institute.