I AM a former resident of Salisbury Road, Andover, and an ex-senior official at Test Valley Borough Council.

I have family still living in the town and hence have great concerns for the plans in progress to introduce fracking in Hampshire.

The evidence is quickly growing that the waste water produced by forcing oil and gas out of the geostructure of the Earth is creating serious health issues.

The public in the county should avail themselves of the latest findings in the USA, where I now live.

California state regulators shut down 11 fracking waste water injection wells last July over concerns that the waste water might have contaminated aquifers used for drinking water and farm irrigation.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ordered a report within 60 days.

It was revealed yesterday that the California State Water Resources Board has sent a letter to the EPA confirming that at least nine of those sites were in fact dumping waste water contaminated with fracking fluids and other pollutants into aquifers protected by state law and the federal Safe Drinking Water Act.

Nearly three billion gallons of waste water were illegally injected into central California aquifers, and half of the water samples collected at the eight water supply wells tested near the injection sites have high levels of dangerous chemicals such as arsenic, a known carcinogen that can also weaken the human immune system, and thallium, a toxin used in rat poison.

Colin Andrews, USA.