On Apr 17, 10:57*pm, jgharston wrote:
The only bits of the "firewater" film that gets shown on the
news is one chap setting fire to gas coming out of his tap.

It is from a (local) borehole.

but how are gases going to leach into the water mains?

A fair amount of water is actually pumped from aquifers.
What Reading pees, London drinks sometime later.

Fracking involves a fair bit of diesel, hence the benzene and lighter
fractions. I have a suspicion it leaks in via the original pipe route
not so much the deep level fracking which is below water table (clay
on top of fracking area).