The Pros And Cons Of Fracking

Imagine, you turn on your faucet, you hold a match perpendicular to the water, and watch as in a horrifying burst of light and heat, fire engulfs your sink. This may be caused by hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking. Fracking is a natural gas drilling process some consider “safe”, that drills into deposits previously unreachable. This involves “smashing rocks with water and chemicals, to bring gas to the surface”. In the Bush Administration’s Energy Policy Act, Fracking was excluded from the list of energy sources that the EPA is capable of regulating. Allow me to elaborate, Vice President Dick Cheney, a former Halliburton (Oil Company) executive and stockholder, managed to create a loophole in the Safe Drinking Act of 1974. Because

On average, wells use up to 8 million liters of water, enough to supply 65,000 people, and thousands of tons of sand, coupled with 200,000 liters of chemicals, which they pump into the ground. It is very expensive to ship in water, so companies generally use local supplies. Of the 40,000 wells in the USA, 55% are located in places currently in a drought. This using 97 billion gallons of water. Over 40 billion of those gallons are used in Texas, which has been in a water shortage for quite some time. And that’s not it, production is set to double over the next few years. In California, 97% of fracking takes place in areas under high water stress (40-80% of water already reserved for the city). Over One-Third of fracking, takes place in areas of groundwater depletion. Many states have taken the liberty of regulating household water use, but have payed very little attention to the fracking companies who use billions of gallons of water to literally “split rocks”. Fracking companies try to point out that they recycle as much water as possible, but studies show they only recycle about 5%. As you can see, while companies try to play down water usage by fracking, it still utilizes a significant amount of

In some people’s homes, the water is polluted and made flammable, even posing the risk of explosion. Allow me to explain how Fracking waste can end up coming out of your sink. Above the surface, Fracking wastewater is stored in pits or pits. If these are not properly constructed, the wastewater may spill, and seep into the ground, with the possibility of wastewater contamination. Underground, if the pipes in the wells that fracking takes place are improperly have any leakage, waste will make it’s way into the ground. If a well exceeds its drilling zone, it may also find it’s way into our groundwater aquifers. Also, if two wells’ fractures intersect each other, they can form together and create new fissures, leading into underground reservoirs. And we still do not know the full extent of the damage, considering that with over the course of several years and decades, natural fissures may let fracking wastewater into the groundwater beneath our feet. While all this goes on, it has been speculated that water used for irrigation has been contaminated. This poses serious health threats to people. In the past, the EPA has maintained that nor fracking is capable, or has ever been shown to contaminate water; possibly due to industry pressures. But as of this past March, the EPA has confirmed that communities in the direct vicinity of fracking, may have had their water contaminated. While they stated that the number