Fracking: Hydraulic Fracturing

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Imagine being able to light water on fire. Seems like a cool party trick, right? As it turns out, many people are able to do this, but instead with the water they’re supposed to be drinking. It’s all because of hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” is a controversial method of harvesting natural gas from our Earth. Despite the seemingly untarnished financial advantages to hydraulic fracturing, the environmental and societal consequences of this dangerous extraction method include poisoned water sources, mass relocation of families, and dangerous environmental conditions that can affect both humans and ecosystems alike. Fracking has been a hot topic among politicians and environmentalists these past few years …show more content…
Hydraulic fracturing is basically a jet of water shot into the ground to free up the natural gas in an underground shale layer, but instead of water they use a mix of hundreds of chemicals. Some of these chemicals are found in lubricants, glues, paint strippers, roach killers, tar removers, insecticides, transmission fluid, and printer ink. In fact, the list of hazardous chemicals is now available to the public after extended efforts by natural gas companies and congress to suppress the release of the list. The fracking chemicals leaching into the ground is primary problem environmentalists have with fracking. Other concerns of fracking include the spawning of earthquakes, the killing of animals, the pollution of air, and the loss of intrinsic value. In the 2010 film Gasland, producer and environmentalist Josh Fox interviewed multiple farmers and homeowners that lived above the Marcellus shale layer, a 600 mile span of land sitting atop the motherlode of natural gas. The farmers and homeowners on this land were experiencing poisoned water wells and aquifers, apparently from the leaching of fracking chemicals and byproducts throughout the soil beneath them. Because of the methane in the water, a few homeowners demonstrated their ability to literally light the water coming from their tap on …show more content…
Seismology studies around fracking sites in Oklahoma and Texas have found an increase of monthly earthquake events from less than twenty a month to over two-hundred a month after fracking practices were adopted in the areas. Surprisingly, it’s not the actual drilling causing this. The true cause of seismic activity near fracking sites is from the fracking fluid. When companies want to get rid of used fracking fluid (which can only be reused only one or two times), they either leave the fluid in an open reservoir or pump it deep underground. By pumping large amounts of fluid underground at such high pressures, tectonic plates are disturbed, making earthquakes inevitable. A peculiar set of 77 earthquakes occured in Youngstown, Ohio in the span of eight days in March 2014, with one of the quakes clocking in at a 3.0 on the Richter scale. The Seismological Society of America promptly conducted an investigation, and found that the rate of earthquakes in that area slowed immediately after the Ohio Department of Natural Resources shutdown all fracking operations near Youngstown. After publishing a report tying the quakes to fracking, Ohio was somewhat forced to form new regulations to subdue fracking. The strangest part is that Ohio had little regulations on fracking, and it took a
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