>I understand that shale mining may cause contamination without proper controls. I am not seeing justification for the statement that it readily pollutes.
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>Drilling a water well and using a gas powered pump may cause groundwater pollution, but that does not mean that it readily does.
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>What am I missing?

You're reading the statements without reading between the lines. These are the same companies that claimed to be able to drill in the gulf without incident (gulf oil spill and many others), to be able to ship oil without incident (Valdez and others), and to be able to pipe oil without incident (Alaska pipeline spills and others). In everything they say they can do safely, there have been enormous spills that have permanently polluted our lands and water.

Shale mining is significantly harder to do without pollution than anything else they already can't do without polluting.