Describe The Fracking Process

Down by Oil Industries Middle School there is a transfer student named Fracking who everyone loves for solving the low cookie crisis. What they did not know is that those cookies were way past their expiration date. The kids did not know this because the cookies simply tasted so great at the moment, for the rest of the week they were all sick from the spoiled cookies. This may seem as an “out there” analogy, but it was to simply put out there to depict how the populace is being blinded by the immediate reward that they do not see the long term effects of fracking. The oil industry has noticed that their oil reserves are low and they are looking for any quick answer to their upcoming problem that they are not seeing the consequences that will
happen. Communities are being blind sighted by the short term incentives that they are not seeing the future consequences that will inevitably happen.
Hydraulic fracturing has been known to pollute the ground, water, and the air in which they pump out the methane gas that is underground.
To know why fracking pollutes the environment, everyone must first understand the fracking process and what is left behind as a result. The fracking process can be summed up in five steps: the first step is to drill a hole, the second step is to pump the hole with a pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals, the third step is to take out the mixture out of the hole, the fourth step is to reel in the natural gas that comes out of the hole, the final step is to insert the water mixture back into the hole and seal it back up (Huffman). The fresh water that has been used up in the Fracking process cannot be purified again through neither the water cycle nor the water treatment plants, as a result, the non-biodegradable water that is in the holes has been known to contaminate aquafer’s water which has led to radioactive and contaminated water being used for everyday use (“Fracking”). Not only does fracking affect the land and water, but it also affects our air by the escaping four percent of all the gas being collected which mainly consists of methane gas; methane gas is known as a greenhouse gas which is twenty-five times more dangerous to the environment than carbon dioxide (Huffman). Fracking is a contributor to the rising temperatures around the globe through the effects done by the pollution of methane gas into the atmosphere. The
process of hydraulic fracking will continue to pollute the ground, air, and the water that the residents use in their day to day life and will negatively affect them. The communities that allow the oil industry to continue with the process of fracking have noticed that there have been unaccounted for cost for allowing the oil industry to frack the ground.
After the fracking process, the fissures left behind have been known to cause earthquakes in communities with no past seismic occurrence (“Fracking”). The earthquakes can easily damage communities that are not well equipped to contain the damage done by earthquakes because of the fact that the communities that are being affected have dealt with occurrences such as tornadoes, but not seismic occurrences such as earthquakes. Oil spills have now become a daily occurrence in North Dakota with their “5100%” increase in oil spills which happen so frequently that they have even stopped reporting them (Huffman). Once a harmful occurrence has become the norm, the situation has now defiantly become a dilemma that needs to be addressed. The residence that allowed the oil industry to perform hydraulic fracking surely did not account for the damages that would ensue because of the ramification done by hydraulic
fracking.
Communities are excited about the new job that they can have and jump right in without knowing the health complications that will affect them in the future. In a study done by the National Institute for Occupational Safety (NIOSH), they found that “31% of the facilities tested for silica were exceeding the expositor limit by a factor of 10, meaning that the amount of silica in the air exceeded the amount to be considered dangerous ten times. The silica in the air can and will lead to a disease known as Silicosis, which is a lung disease that will likely affect the common worker despite being adequately protected (Huffman). In one viral video instance, a man was certain that his water seemed a bit off; when he put his lighter beside the running water, it ignited in flames. The water that he was coming out of the tap was from an underground water reservoir which had now been polluted by methane and dangerous chemicals used in fracking (“Fracking”). The communities that have agreed to have fracking to take place have now seen the consequences for the health of the workers and the polluted aquifers that cannot be treated. No matter how much money is given to the communities for hydraulic fracking to be allowed; no amount of incentive money will ever add up all the damages that will happen to a community. Not only does hydraulic fracking damage a community, but the oil industry will also be hurt through the needed settlements for all of the damage done to the environment and the populace’s health. The amount of oil in the world is defiantly running out; instead of looking for the next way to squeeze the meager amount of oil and natural gas the world has left, oil industries should look for the alternative forms that are clean and surely not run out such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric energy.