Is Fracking Really Worth Our Environment?

Last summer, I had the opportunity to take part in an internship at Eastern University. The internship was about studying watersheds and the organisms living in them. I was never really interested in nature or the environment, but I always knew how important it was to some extent, so I found the class to be important. Though I was quite squeamish, and we were studying in the middle of the woods, so many of our experiments and studies I was reluctant to take a huge part in. Still, I learned so much about how our environment works and to this day there is still one particular thing we learned about that continues to bother me.

I can’t recall his name, but on one occasion we had a keynote speaker who spoke to our class about the dangers of a process called “Fracking.”

In certain areas around America, the attempts at providing this more environmentally friendly substitute to oil is unfortunately turning out to be more harmful as process than what the gas is worth. With the damage it does to the environment and to the quality of water. Hydraulic fracturing, or better known as “fracking”, is a process in which a well would be drilled into the ground and inject fluids at high pressure in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas that exists beneath earth’s surface. First a well is dug over a mile into the ground, going horizontal to breach and drill into the shale. A mixture of water, sand, and various chemicals are then pumped into the well at high pressures to create crevices in the shale and allow the natural gas to be extracted. The gas is then drawn back up the well and processed. The procedure may produce a valuable natural gas, but that fact can only be over looked when considering the harm fracking does to the environment around it.

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In states like Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Michigan there are already very much established fracking industries, but also statistics that show increases in death rates, dying animals, and even water contamination in these areas. The methods used in this process are dangerous to the environment, putting various parts of the nature, especially the water, at risk.

However, as dangerous a procedure as it is, fracking operations are able to proceed without restraint. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) requires a permit for the injection of chemicals into the earth, but fracking is able to go unhindered as it is considered to be the extraction of natural gas instead of the introduction of hazardous fluids. Despite fracking involving the injection of hazardous chemicals into the earth in order to complete the process of extraction. This truth is often ignored when proponents of hydraulic fracking only insist upon the economic benefits from large amounts of previously unreachable natural gas. Yet, considering the blatant dangers fracking imposes on the environment, there is reason to be worried.

After that class, and after doing my own research to really know what Fracking was, I honestly don’t think it’s a procedure we should engage in until it’s proven to be completely safe or another method, a better one, is implemented.

Sources-

http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/water/fracking/
http://www.dangersoffracking.com/
http://news.cornell.edu/stories/2012/03/reproductive-problems-death-animals-exposed-fracking

One thought on “Is Fracking Really Worth Our Environment?

  1. Katherine Jane Ballantyne

    Although hydrafracking is super controversial, our amount of natural gas on Earth is limited. In New York, hydrafracking was declared safe by the Health Dept. I think that the idea of hydrafracking is a good one and it can be carefully monitored to make sure that it’s being done safely and properly. And, since it’s so controversial, all eyes would be on the results; people would make sure that it’s not causing adverse effects. The issue will definitely stay in the news for a while.

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