Fracking Research Paper

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Imagine for a second, your just about to get a nice cold drink of water when you friend drops by all excited and says, "wanna see a cool trick?" You both head over to your water tap, turn it on, they take a lighter to it and this happens... somehow you remove the hidden dangers and this is what your water REALLY looks like. Would you drink dare take a drink? I didn't think so!
On October 17th 2013 the Mi'kmaq people of the little known First Nations community of Elsipogtog where highlighted in the world wide media due to the RCMP using excessive force during a raid on their peaceful protest. What were they protesting? They were protesting, through a roadblock, the illegal exploration of fracking by the big oil company SWN.
How many people here know what Fracking is? Ok, for those who are not familiar let us explain.

What is it?
Fracking Aka Hydraulic fracturing is a process to extract natural gases and oils located deep beneath the earth in shale rock formations. Before Fracking these gases and oils were nearly impossible to extract.
So what does this process look like? Firstly, a hole is dug approximately 10,000 feet into the ground. When the destination is located a disgusting mixture, called "fracking fluid" is pumped down the hole through a pipeline at extremely high pressures, this causes the shale rock to crack, creating fissures, and releases the gas or oil which then flows back up the well.

When did it start?
Fracking is not relatively new and can be traced back to the 1940's. However it began gaining popularity around 2003 when energy companies began actively expanding natural gas exploration and has been used on over one million producing wells in America. To date big oil and gas companies fracture over 35,000 wells each year and that is ONLY in the United States.

Why is it bad?
Now you are probably wondering, what is so bad about Fracking that the folks in New Brunswick set up a road blockade in protest?

Let's take a look at the "Fracking fluid" to start. 1-8 million gallons of water is required for only one fracturing job! The water is then mixed with sand, and roughly 600 chemicals! Many of the chemicals used have toxic or carcinogenic properties! Uranium, mercury, methanol, hydrochloric acid, ethylene glycol, benzene, lead, and formaldehyde are only 9 of the 600 possible chemicals used in EVERY single fracking injection. Although Big Oil Companies attempt to siphon the used fracking fluid, in truth they are successful in recovering only 30 - 50% of it.
When the shale rocks begin to fracture then ground contamination comes a reality. This is due to left over methane gas and toxic chemicals leaking out from the system which contaminates nearby ground water. Recent studies show that water wells near fracking sites contain 17 times more methane than normal wells.
Some of this waste, especially methane concentrations, make it to the surface ground, evaporating and releasing volatile organic compounds creating air contamination, ground level ozone, and acid rain.
There is also the chance that the drilling site could explode. As was the case on February 11th 2014 when the residents of Bobtown, Pennsylvania heard a loud boom and saw flames shoot into the sky when the local fracturing site exploded, leaving one dead, and a fire that burned extremely hot for 5 days. Oh but don't worry about all those spilled chemicals, wasted waters, or any other negative impacts the explosion may have caused... If you get a good fracking company like Chevron you might get a free large pizza and 2 liter cola out of it - hurry though, the coupon will only last 2 and a half months!

How does it affect the environment?

There are currently over 1,000 cases of sensory, respiratory and neurological damage due to fracking... And those cases are ONLY in the US!

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