Hydraulic Fracturing is a process that sends pressurized
liquid down to a target depth to fracture rock and draws out liquids, such as
natural gas. This process is used to
retrieve the gas from rock formations beneath the earth that were previously
thought to be unsuitable for gas production (Helman) (Rao). Fracking is now being implemented all over
the world. Many countries have turned to
this method of extracting gas to lower fuel costs and balance their trade
deficits, but these countries, including the United States, are allowing
fracking to cause major damage to the environment. The water pollution, and air pollution that are
caused by fracking, and the law exemptions it has, are inexcusable because of
the damage and danger they cause to the environment.
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The EPA has finally linked fracking and water pollution
together. The fracking process forces
millions of gallons of water into the earth to fracture the rock, usually
shale, and releases natural gas. The
water is filled with numerous chemicals that keep the cracks in the rock open
so that the natural gas can come out.
Not all the solution can stay down under the earth, or else there would
still be high amounts of pressure underground and the gas would not come out of
the rock (Helman), so much of the water is pumped back out of the earth and put
into waste pits or shipped off in trucks.
These waste pits are simply ditches that have been dug cheaply and
sometimes not even lined with plastic or hard clay. The contaminants are allowed to seep into the
ground and wreak havoc on our water supplies as seen in the state of
Wyoming. Thirty-three abandoned waste
pits leaked dangerous chemicals, such as the cancer causing benzene and
2-butoxyethanol, into the groundwater.
In 2008, the EPA found water contaminates that could be related to
fracking, and another EPA water sampling confirmed that relation. The EPA and other federal health officials
then warned residents not to drink the water for their own safety. Homeowners were also cautioned to ventilate
their homes because of the levels of methane found in their water, which was
enough to be lit on fire. Hydraulic
fracturing supporters have long said that geologic layers that they were
drilling underneath would be a sufficient barrier to protect groundwater from
fracking fluids, and the EPA reports also found that, “Those layers were not
sufficient to provide a reliable barrier to contaminants moving upward” (Lustgarten and Kusnetz).
Read
more at Wakefield High School,
Arlington Public Schools, Arlington, VA.
Fracking
image via the Royal Society
of Chemistry.
This story is part of the Collegiate Corner, a section of ENN dedicated to student work. All work in this column is the product of the student in its entirely. If you have questions about the Collegiate Corner or would like to submit please contact: rblackstone@enn.com.