Fracking (hydraulic fracturing) in Maryland has been banned but was it ever given a chance? Fracking is a common form of drilling for oil and gas, but this form is not practiced in Maryland due to it being banned by state law. Fracking is conducted by shooting water, sand, and chemicals under extremely high pressure, down an oil well to crack apart the rock and release trapped oil and gas. The downfall to this method is that the water has to go somewhere, and it could it end up in drinking water causing the water to become polluted and potently “poisoned”. Governor Hogan signed Maryland’s fracking ban into law on April 4, 2017. He signed it with having a lot of environmental concerns that could come along with fracking. Some concerns that most people have with fracking are spread of toxins, not knowing what exact chemicals are being used, and that it could be causing small earthquakes. What some people can’t see are all the positive things that come from fracking. There is a lot more access of oil and gas with this process. Compared to using coal the air quality will be so much better. This will reduce our dependency for foreign oil. Which is a good thing, so we won’t have to depend on anyone else to supply us. It will also be saving us money in that aspect. It gives the opportunity for more jobs to become available. This is a …show more content…
As of April 2017, Maryland becomes the third state along with New York and Vermont to ban fracking. One state doing well with fracking is West Virginia. In 2015 2,273 wells were made by fracking. Some things West Virginia has done to make fracking safer for them is by putting in regulations in affect. A few of the regulations are protection of underground and surface water, must report the types of fluids and the volume being used, and spill prevention and clean up. In March 2017 West Virginia started to require that fracking operations must submit a list of the chemicals being