Early this week, Gov. Matt Mead met with residents in the Pavillion area in an effort to resolve complaints some have raised about groundwater tainted by pollution.

Specifically, some residents of the rural area in northern Fremont County believe their wells have been contaminated by the chemicals used in the process of hydraulic fracturing, commonly called fracking. Fracking involves pumping water, sand and various chemicals under pressure into a well to release oil or gas by fracturing tight rock formations.

Late last year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, following a two-year study, found a possible link between fracking activity in the area and chemicals found in the groundwater. Both state and industry officials have criticized the report, as have some area residents who don’t believe there has been any change in their water.

Despite the doubts, Mead held the meeting because he believes it is in the state’s interest to make sure residents have clean water available. Options for addressing the issue involve costs to the state ranging from $400,000 to $3 million.

The issues involved go far beyond the Pavillion area. Recently a fracking operation was carried out southeast of Powell. When questioned, a state regulator assured the Powell Tribune that the depth of the operation, nearly two miles underground, would cause no problems with the water table in that area.

That may well be so in this case, but it seems improbable that such an operation would never pollute water sources vital to rural residents or to municipal or regional systems. Moreover, it seems likely that other problems could arise as well. A recent spate of earthquakes in Ohio, an area not generally susceptible to seismic activity, has raised questions about fracking activity in that area.

Nor is this a new problem. Subsidence due to long closed underground coal mines has limited housing development in Rock Springs, and attempts to deal with the situation, is blamed for damaging existing homes. Chemicals from mining operations conducted over a century ago still threaten streams in the Rocky Mountain West, and modern-day accidents, such as the British Petroleum disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, are always a possibility.

Much more attention is paid to these consequences now than in the past. Generally, but not universally, industry is more careful about preventing or mitigating such problems.

Still, in our quest for energy and other minerals, individuals, families, businesses and whole communities may be harmed, even destroyed by some unforeseen consequence, such as pollution caused by fracking fluids.

We cannot, of course, discontinue our search for oil and gas to avoid those damages, but industry and society need to recognize that they exist and can have serious consequences, if not to us immediately, to our children and grandchildren. As a society, we must take the costs of dealing with those consequences into account when we determine the cost of the energy we use.

Using state funds to address the issues in Fremont County is one way of doing that, and Gov. Mead is to be commended for taking that approach.