The Truth About Fracking
A.
- The basic technique of “hydraulic fracturing” has been used in conventional-style wells since the late 1940s
- The chief hurdle is that unlike fracking of vertical wells, horizontal fracking requires enormous volumes of water and chemicals
- Huge ponds or tanks are also needed to store the chemically laden “flowback water” that comes back up the hole after wells have been fractured
- industry scientists dismiss the idea that fracking has caused polluted water wells and flammable kitchen faucets
- To maximize access to the gas, however, companies may drill a dozen or more vertical wells, closely spaced, at a single site
- the scientists and regulators now trying to answer this complex question have arrived a little late
- We could have used their research before fracking became a big controversy
- The cause of political conflict in New York, where the Department of Environmental Conservation recently unveiled a plan to give drilling companies access to 85 percent of the state’s portion of the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations
- Fracking would not be allowed in the New York City or Syracuse watersheds
- The department based its go-ahead on reviews of various studies and says it plans to tightly regulate any drilling work
- The push to drill in New York before the EPA’s results are ready is forcing experts to try to determine which charges against fracking hold some weight and which need new research to address
- If fracking is taken to refer to the entire process of unconventional gas drilling from start to finish, it is already guilty of some serious infractions
- The flowback water has to be managed; up to 75 percent of what is blasted down comes back up
- These kinds of impacts can be blamed on fracking if the term refers to the whole industrial process—but not necessarily if it means just the underground water blast that fractures the rock after the drilling is done
- To show that fracking as industry defines it is the problem, you have to examine the alleged threat that is simultaneously the most publicized
- The most uncertain: the idea that water blasts deep underground can directly contaminate drinking water, by creating unexpected pathways for gas or liquid to travel between deep shale and shallow groundwater
- To see how complex this issue is, consider an EPA enforcement action in 2010 against Range Resources, a Fort Worth–based gas company that plumbs sites in Texas’s famed Barnett Shale
- The EPA ordered the company to provide clean water to the injured parties, to determine if any other nearby wells were contaminated, and to take other steps
- poor cementing accounts for a number of groundwater contamination cases from unconventional gas drilling—including the $1-million Chesapeake violation
- Implicating or absolving fracking, no matter how it is defined, will require more data
B. Hydraulic Fracturing (fracking) has been used in more conventional style wells ever since the 1940's. It is a technique that lets us dig into wells and search for the natural gases that are being stored underground. Fracking is very powerful, however, it is not enough to be able to blow open new fissures through a lot of rock considering the fact that it is connected to a horizontal well bores to the groundwater near the surface. One of the main problem comes AFTER fracking is done. The problem with an area after going through the hydraulic fracturing, the excess water ends up being stored in tanks and trucks and usually ends up in pits. This is a very big issue because that water that comes up contains some natural gas within it and makes the water very flammable. The problem with this flammable water is that it usually ends up in citizens water tanks which makes the water that they are using very dangerous to use. Even though people have been complaining to the big companies about this VERY serious problem, big corporations do not care about them and they end up getting ignored. Even scientists are stating that there is nothing wrong with the water. The EPA is also trying to cover up the fact that they know what is going on.
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C.. After reading this article as well as watching the Gas Land movie in my APES class, I was very alarmed at the fact that this was something people can just easily get away with. I am utterly disgusted at the fact that the people at the higher corporations are just willing to let people get poison while they are just making so much money. I was really unaware of fracking before reading this and I am very glad I was informed about this. Water is one of the most basic human need that is becoming unusable and I just do not believe that it is fair for the people that are suffering the consequences of other people's bad actions. I truly believe that people in charge of big corporations have no right to be involved within politics. With this, then the government just ends up being a money hungry corrupt organization that just cares for themselves and are very much willing to step on the less fortunate just to make sure their pockets are well stuffed.
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