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The Pros And Cons Of Fracking

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Hydraulic fracturing or better known as “Fracking” is one of the many rising topics in Michigan. Fracking is the process of mixing water, proppants, and chemicals together and injecting it at a high pressure down 10,000 feet into the Earth to break shale rocks. This is done to extract hundreds of thousands of natural gases that are used every day. But little do people know it is not only affecting their soil, animals, and natural resources, it is affecting them. Fracking should not be authorized in the state of Michigan because it causes health issues for humans, harms animals, and hurts the environment. Fracking is jeopardizing our Earth and everything in it. As the gas and oil companies are fracking away, there are chemicals …show more content…

The businesses running today produce over 300,000 barrels of natural gases each day. Michigan alone produces 23% of the natural gases fracked in the U.S. This provides the heat to warm houses, the gases to heat the pan on top of the stove, and so much more. Fracking helps many people with their everyday needs, but how much is society going to risk for the gases they need? The water needed to extract the gases out of the ground are coming out of one of Michigan’s greatest resources: the Great Lakes. It takes 8 million gallons of water to create part of the fluids used in each frack. There are over 13,000 fracking wells in Michigan, and each well can be fracked on 18 times. The total comes out to 72 trillion gallons of water being used for this operation. Not all of the water used flows back, only 30-50% comes back up and is reused. Michigan’s DEQ (Department of Environmental Quality) has a rule that all flowback and produced fluids must be properly contained. But the problem is that some of it are are not being handled well. Gases may start to leak out of the pipes and contaminate the air causing heavier acid rain and ground-level ozone to occur. Some of the fluid left behind finds its way into open air pits in the ground that evaporate releasing VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds) into the atmosphere. VOC’s are also being released as the trucks carrying water put exhausts into the air. Each fracking site needs more than 400 trucks to carry water, chemicals, and sand. This is damaging our roads and the noise on the roads. As fracking keeps on, the fresh water will decrease ounce by ounce, the air will keep contaminating with every leakage, the risks will become more hazardous, and the noise will only

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