Arguments Against Hydraulic Fracking

The modern environmental justice movement began in the mid- 20th century, when the country realized that the environment needed help. This movement throughout the last several decades has evolved from protecting woodland areas from deforestation to protection against the gas industry. Hydraulic fracturing is the process by which natural gas is extracted from the earth’s shales. The process begins with drilling through several layers of the earth, like the freshwater aquifer. Next, water with “fracking fluid” is injected into the drilled area to crack the shale. This water comes back up to the surface and is put into a pit to evaporate. The natural gas flows up, and is then stored. The process is simple enough, but so are the consequences. Hydraulic fracturing has detrimental environmental consequences and should be banned.
As stated before, to get to the shale of gas, the drill passes through the fresh water aquifer. The aquifer is where the public gets their water. A popular pro- hydraulic fracturing argument is that there is not any traceable pollution due to drilling; the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection says the contrary. “The Department has determined that eighteen
Water injections, which is how the shale gets fractured, has caused many earthquakes in places that were not usually susceptible to them. According to the Scientific American, “In January, wastewater injection was blamed for earthquakes that had just occurred in Youngstown, Ohio, on Christmas Eve and again on New Year's Eve, measuring 2.7 and 4.0 on the Richter scale, respectively” (Fischetti, 2012). Before hydraulic drilling had come to Youngstown, there had never been this many earthquakes in such a short amount of time. Fracking is disrupting the seismic activity under the earth’s surface, which is also damaging water wells, further contributing to polluting the