Fracking in North Texas

Dear editor, Ever wonder why earthquakes are caused? Why does water in certain areas smell or taste like a chemical gas? The most likely reason for both of these effects is fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, as known as fracking, is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at a high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas inside (Dong). According to many recent research studies fracking is very harmful to the environment and shouldn’t be done here in Coppell, but how so? You need to understand the fracturing fluid that is used for fracking. The fluid from the hydraulic fracturing process is nearly 99.5% water and sand, which makes it a mixture. That may not seem so bad, but the chemicals that make up the other 0.5% could possibly be deadly. A few of the chemicals used are household items like sodium chloride, guar gum, and borate salt(Dong). Fracking requires up to 5 million gallons of water per well and perhaps even more in which case, the tons of water used would create a huge demand of local water supplies (Dong). Unlike agriculture or domestic water uses, gas drilling does not return the used water back into in the ground (Myers). The water can not go back into the ground because the returned water not only has added chemicals that helped with fracturing but also has about 40,000 gallons of chemicals that were previously added (Dong). Sometimes, the used water can leak out in surrounding lakes and rivers. Those lakes and rivers supply the surrounding communities with water but now since fracking, the water is polluted. The chemicals that are in the water can cause serious illnesses and possibly be life threatening since most chemicals are poisonous.

Studies say that fracking can also cause earthquakes to happen. While the gas extraction process can cause some small quakes, it’s the disposal of wastewater following that process- and many others relating to energy production-