Water is unsafe even before fracking begins

http://www.theguardian.com/global/2015/aug/23/water-is-unsafe-even-before-fracking-begins

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Thirty thousand households enter their third week of boiling otherwise unsafe water (Report, 22 August), as United Utilities continue to clean 2,500 miles of pipes contaminated by cryptosporidium. That this is in the heartland of an area targeted by Cuadrilla for intensive shale gas extraction should give pause for serious thought about the scale of operation that would be needed in the event of water contaminants introduced by fracking.Austen LynchGarstang, Lancashire

• Little wonder that Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras looks “exhausted, drawn, white under the pancake makeup”, sounding uncertain, and stumbling over his words (Opinion, 22 August) – that’s financial waterboarding for you.Dr Richard HouseStroud, Gloucestershire

• Your front-page article on epigenetic inheritance (Holocaust trauma led to changes in genes – study, 22 August) does not mention the name Lamarck, despite being an example of Lamarckian inheritance, which neo-Darwinists have vehemently denied for over a century. Hugh DowerWensleydale, Yorkshire

• When we were about to go on an outing, my father, born in the East End of London in 1929, would tell me and my sister to “jump in the jam”. As a small child in Hampshire, I knew no Cockney rhyming slang, but I knew from the context that we were being told to get in the car. We didn’t own a tramcar (Letters, 21 August).Cherry WestonWolverhampton

• Two good friends who live in respectable London W11 tell me that any plants they put in their small front garden are stolen within 24 hours. Am I in the wrong country? Ann HawkerLondon