Too Frack or Not to Frack
To Frack or Not to Frack
Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at high pressures in order to release natural gas from shale rocks by fracturing them. It takes an abundance of resources to create just one fracking well. Each gas well needs on average four hundred tanker trucks to carry water and supplies to the site. Fracking uses a great deal of water. Each fracturing job requires one to eight million gallons of water to complete it. Hydraulic fracturing has a huge effect on the environment primarily due to all the harmful chemicals used in the process. Some people don't want to ban fracking because it reduces imports of natural gas to america and it creates jobs, but many of these workers are being injured from working on the fracking site. In addition to poisoning its workers and the environment fracking is actually more expensive than traditional drilling.
During the process in which the fracking solution is forced into the ground at high pressures, occasionally toxic fluids can leak out from the system and contaminate nearby drinking water. Environmental studies have concluded that methane concentrations are seventeen times higher in drinking water wells near fracturing sites. There are at least 1,000 documented cases of water contamination next to fracking areas as well as cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water. Up to six hundred chemicals are used in the fluid solution they send into the ground, including carcinogens and toxins such as uranium, methanol, mercury, hydrolic acid, ethylene, glycol, and formaldehyde. When they bring the fracturing fluid back up after fracturing the shale rocks, to release the natural gas, only thirty to fifty percent of it is recovered. The waste solution recovered is then left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile
Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is the process of drilling and injecting fluid into the ground at high pressures in order to release natural gas from shale rocks by fracturing them. It takes an abundance of resources to create just one fracking well. Each gas well needs on average four hundred tanker trucks to carry water and supplies to the site. Fracking uses a great deal of water. Each fracturing job requires one to eight million gallons of water to complete it. Hydraulic fracturing has a huge effect on the environment primarily due to all the harmful chemicals used in the process. Some people don't want to ban fracking because it reduces imports of natural gas to america and it creates jobs, but many of these workers are being injured from working on the fracking site. In addition to poisoning its workers and the environment fracking is actually more expensive than traditional drilling.
During the process in which the fracking solution is forced into the ground at high pressures, occasionally toxic fluids can leak out from the system and contaminate nearby drinking water. Environmental studies have concluded that methane concentrations are seventeen times higher in drinking water wells near fracturing sites. There are at least 1,000 documented cases of water contamination next to fracking areas as well as cases of sensory, respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated water. Up to six hundred chemicals are used in the fluid solution they send into the ground, including carcinogens and toxins such as uranium, methanol, mercury, hydrolic acid, ethylene, glycol, and formaldehyde. When they bring the fracturing fluid back up after fracturing the shale rocks, to release the natural gas, only thirty to fifty percent of it is recovered. The waste solution recovered is then left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VOC’s (volatile