English Homework

Fracking, Dumping, and the Quality of Our Water

EJ LeJeune

Columbia Southern University

Fracking, Dumping, and the Quality of Our Water

Since the turn of the 21st century, the nation has been pressed to find a solution to America’s dependence on foreign oil and to find natural resources that will help to create a cheaper and cleaner way to heat our homes. Natural gas has many fans and many opposed to its effects on the environment. Currently, in the Northeast of the United States, “horizontal hydraulic fracturing”, commonly known as “fracking”, has exploded over the Appalachian region, creating lucrative jobs for the masses of the area and booming the economies in the small towns in which the gas industries pass through. Consider it the 21st century gold rush. The nation needs an answer to its oil dependency, and the gas companies have closed in on the market. But before the public gets too excited about the prospects of natural gas usage in the Northeast, it must also consider the effects of the fracking process on the environment. While many citizens know that the fracking movement is happening, and vaguely understand the purpose, the extent to which this trade explosion has affected society remains slightly fogged to the general public. Some may wonder why fracking is happening in the areas it is, what risks it may pose, and how it could affect climate change or the environment. Because there are areas of fracking that we are all generally unversed about, extra research and a comparison of pros and cons is necessary before drawing opinions about its risk and worth.

To better understand the potential causes and effects of fracking, one must first understand the location of its presence, along with the background as to how and why this method of securing natural resources was selected and implemented. Traditional drilling for oil in the ground involves “drilling a vertical pipe from the surface to an oil or gas reservoir in the ground” (Merrill, 2013, pg. 971), but this means of drilling ignores the oil that is caught between layers of sedimentary rock with no way for vertical drilling to release it for use. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, speaks to its procedure in that it is a horizontal drilling technique that “factures” the rock and releases the oil through a process of “pumping a fluid, sometimes called ‘slick water,’ … mostly water mixed with some proppant like sand or small ceramic balls plus a small amount of lubricating chemicals. The pressure from the water fractures the rock, and the sand props the fractures open. The fracturing fluid, or most of it at any rate, is then pumped out, and if all goes well the oil or gas flows out behind it” (Merrill, 2013, pg. 972). This combination of fracturing and horizontal drilling came to pass as a new science in 1998 in Texas (Merrill, 2013, pg. 973), and has since been implemented in states such as North Dakota, which now produces more oil than Alaska (2013, pg. 975). From there, gas companies began to survey for other large areas of shale gas pockets in the United States, and discovered a “major shale gas basin” which extends over western Pennsylvania, Ohio, the southern tier of New York, and covers most of West Virginia (Northeast Gas Assoc., 2016), and is now the largest region for shale gas production in the United States (2016). With estimates of the shale gas movement as having potentially enough oil to run the entire nation for 110 years (US News & World, 2015), this may seem like a positive step in natural resource independence for the country. But what are the effects of the fracturing process on the environment, and are those risks worth it?

We know that the innovation of horizontal drilling has caused many to have environmental concerns in regard to its process. While the hydraulic fracturing process uses water and sand to fracturing the shale rock in order to escape the oil, “a congressional Democrat report released in April identified about 750 chemicals that have also been used in the process, 29 of which are either likely or known carcinogens” (US News & World, 2015), and this fluid then “flows back up the well, and is stored in open pits until it can be sent to a treatment plant” (2015) with no known way in which to gauge how much of this fluid remains in the ground. In addition to dumping into the ground, potentially affecting the drinking water of those areas, the EPA is currently investigating ways in which to control the air pollution of the hydraulic fracturing companies, since “fracking is known to produce airborne pollutants like methane, benzene, and sulfur oxide” (2015). This has been a major concern for landowners within the vicinity of fracking operations because “fracking fluid contains a small percentage of chemicals, some of which, like arsenic, are known toxics and others of which, like benzene, are known carcinogens” (Merrill, 2013, pg. 981) and the fear is two-fold: that the ground water is being contaminated, and that property values will drop because of it. And in recent years, these fears have been quantified through research of the environmental footprint that fracking is leaving, including one report by The Environment America & Research Policy Center, which states that fracking creates 280 billion gallons of wastewater per year, which is enough to cover the entirety of Washington, D.C. in a 22 foot wastewater pool (Environment America, 2013). And with no regulation or true ability to know that they are keeping that waste water from contaminating the water supplies, the potential threats are as mysterious as they are frightening. In 2014, an environmental consulting firm, Downstream Strategies, attempting to trace fracking liquid’s path underground to determine where it ends up and if it is a threat to drinking water. The project ended with inconclusive reports because of the “wide range of disposal methods used by the industry” (Drouin, 2014). What the study was able to conclude was that in addition to the colossal amount of waste water which is produced in the process, one single well in Pennsylvania consumes 4.3 million gallons of fresh water, and that at least half of the wastewater is released into surface waters, such as streams and rivers (2014).

All of these uncertainties combined created health scares from the onset of the fracking procedures, and is how being realized. Given the amount of carcinogens, radium, and chlorine being dumped into the groundwater, many individuals and families are “experiencing rashes, gastrointestinal conditions, or other health concerns…that may have been caused by exposure to pollutants” (Drouin, 2014). Further, a 2015 report from Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania have found that “People who live in areas near hydraulic fracturing are more likely to be hospitalized for heart conditions, neurological illnesses and cancer” (Valdmanis, 2015). But on top of citing the ground water and air pollution, this report also addressed the social concerns of the citizens in fracking areas due to excess noise, upheaval of traffic busyness, and the turnover of strangers in their areas (2015).

In addition to the effects of fracking on the ground water, many argue that the idea of running the nation on 110 years’ worth of hydraulic fracking oil may not be the best solution to the United States’ natural resource dependency issue. Rather, many see this as only a delay to a larger problem, and at a risk that not only poses potential health and safety threats to individuals, but also “compromises efforts to reduce the risk of climate change” (Merrill, 2013, pg. 981) over the next 110 years that we are ignoring the larger issue.

While climate change is the over-enveloping issue, the risks of run-off, waste water mysteries underground, and dumping into surface water pose enough risk for the fracking process to be questioned thoroughly. With the increase of hospitalizations and cancer reports on the rise in these areas, the nation must decide if the benefits of hydraulic fracking are worth the depletion of human health, and if an alternate resource should be sought. What is known effects of the hydraulic gas process on water is all negative, and the rest is unknown. While the “energy industry and proponents of fracking say the technology can be used safely and that fears of pollution and health risks are overblown” (Valdmanis, 2015), the evidence that is manifesting is surely proving to differ.

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