Veronica Kronvall remembers how excited she felt about buying her house in 2007. It was her first house, in the small city of Ponder, Texas. Her kitchen was filled with her favorite color, purple, everything from mixing bowls to the microwave. She planted roses and planned on having a garden. She planned at living in this house for decades. What Veronica did not imagine was that 4 years later and energy company would drill 5 wells behind her home, with the closest being less than 300 feet from her backyard. Green pipes and tanks loom over her fence. The rumble of trucks and equipment rattled the glasses in her cupboard, and the smell of an acrid blend of chemicals was constant. She began having symptoms she had never had before, her eyes …show more content…
Once the well reaches the right depth, it turns right or left and becomes horizontal. This is called the kick off point. The horizontal section can span anywhere from 1,000 to 6,000 feet. The drill is removed but the surrounding steel casing remains. These steel casings are meant to protect the groundwater and the surrounding area from any potential leakage during the fracking process. Down at the horizontal section of the well, little holes are punctured through the steel in thousands of spots. Then, a water solution is pumped at a extremely high pressure down the well. This causes tons of cracks and fissures in the rock. Additives and sand in the water mixture hold the cracks open, allowing oil to escape and be brought up to the surface. Hydraulic fracking isn 't all good though, there are many controversial things about it. First off, water contamination is a hazard. There are many ways that the water supply could be contaminated by fracking. One way is by groundwater entering through cracks that fracking has made. The water solution that 's pumped into the ground is a mixture of water, sand, and chemicals. Water and sand make up 98% of the mixture, while the remaining 2% is chemicals. Although fracking companies have never realised the chemicals used, scientists studying wastewater have found many harmful additives. A few of these are benzene, toluene, and many acids, all of which pose huge threats to humans. For each fracking well, more than 8 million liters of
Water droughts are also a concern as many of the places where hydraulic fracturing is used have water drought and because of the huge amount of water used to recover natural gas and oil this can lead to increases in water droughts.There is concern about increased pollution to the water and air in those surrounding areas where fracking takes place. It is also known that there is an increased presence of toxins in the water supply in the areas surrounding. The toxins are released into the air and cause an increase in air pollution. 10-40 % of the fracking wastewater is comes back into the original drilling hole and this can cause long term consequences such as ground water supplies becoming
Fracking is a process that involves combining water with various toxic chemicals to create frack fluid. This chemical is highly toxic and can return to the surface, polluting water and destroying ecosystems and communities. This article includes various facts and statistics of fracking’s effect on the environment. The evidence of its harmful effects is laid out in an easy to read and cite format. “Fracking’s Environmental Impacts: Water” will provide supporting
First what is hydraulic fracking? Hydraulic fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are infused into the stone at high weight which permits the gas to stream out to the leader of the well. Vinik talks about the positive side of fracking but he fails to mention the harm fracking causes. Fracking wastewater contains high levels of radioactivity and other contaminants that wastewater treatments plants have had difficulty removing; this potentially contaminated wastewater can than be discharged into local rivers.In Pennsylvania, more than 3,000 gas fracking wells and allowed well locales are situated inside two miles of 320 day mind focuses, 67 schools and nine healing centers. Fracking is prohibited.excluded from key government water insurances, and elected and state controller have permitted unchecked extension of fracking, making broad natural
Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is the process of drilling deep underground to collect hydrocarbons. Although you don’t even have to drill straight down. It can go out horizontally, like the spokes on a bicycle wheel. There can be up to fifteen of these “bicycle spokes” each time. This allows even more hydrocarbons to be collected. Even though fracking is a good way to collect oil and natural gas, there are many components that are harmful to the environment. One of these is the harm that fracking is doing to the water. When the mixture of water, sand, and added chemicals is injected into the steel pipe, only 15%-50% of it is recovered and brought back to the surface. The rest of the water stays underground and is
Hydraulic fracturing or “fracking” is an oil and gas drilling process that is used to extract oil and natural gas from deep underground. Fracking is the cheapest route for oil and gas companies to make billions of dollars. The majority of the time the cheapest way is not always the best way of doing things. Hydraulic fracturing is not a good thing just because it makes money for--at times--everyone involved, as it causes our air and water to be polluted. There should be more regulations and laws to prevent contamination and protect our air and water from fracking pollution.
Hydraulic fracking has been known to release ‘more than 650 chemicals”( source 3), because of this people who are living ‘near these wells fear their health may be harmed” ( source 3). Even though hydraulic fracking has not caused any known health problems there is still the threat that could come soon when more and more well build up. This could also harm the wildlife and could cause their habitat to be destroyed.
First what is hydraulic fracking? Hydraulic fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand and chemicals are infused into the stone at high weight which permits the gas to stream out to the leader of the well. Vinik talks about the positive side of fracking but he fails to mention the harm fracking causes. Fracking wastewater contains high levels of radioactivity and other contaminants that wastewater treatments plants have had difficulty removing; this potentially contaminated wastewater can than be discharged into local rivers.In Pennsylvania, more than 3,000 gas fracking wells and allowed well locales are situated inside two miles of 320 day mind focuses, 67 schools and nine healing centers. Fracking is prohibited.excluded from key government water insurances, and elected and state controller have permitted unchecked extension of
Hydraulic Fracking is the act of shooting or drilling chemicals and liquids into the ground at a high speed in order to break the rocks and earth below. When you break the rocks, or fracture them, it releases the natural gas that is trapped inside. Fracking is a controversial topic, with benefits seen by some and devastating results seen by others. The state of Texas allows fracking, and it is a technique used all over the state. The Obama administration and the federal government believe that fracking can lead the country away from dependence on fossil fuels and into a new generation of clean energy. However, environmental agencies believe that fracking is just another energy source that is no better for the environment than coal, and leads to contaminated water. Fracking companies do not have to follow the Safe Water Drinking Act of 1974, whose purpose is to protect groundwater for the people.
The nation is shifting towards electricity generated by natural gas- over the past ten years 81 percent of new electricity capacity has been gas fired- and state governments are playing regulatory catch-up with the drilling technology’s rapid expansion to meet this burgeoning demand”. (http://www.gracelinks.org/191/natural-gas-fracking-introduction) However; to meet this demand, gas and oil companies have ignored some rather important harmful effects of hydraulic fracturing. These harmful effects include; water droughts, increased pollution, the spread of toxins, and possible negative influence on local economies. Water droughts because of the fracking process are caused by using up to approximately one-hundred times more water than previous drilling methods. This means that gradually less and less of the world where drilling is active or was active will have the ability to attain non chemical induced water. The article, “List of Pros and Cons of Fracking” published by Occupy Theory states that, “Anywhere from 10 to 40 percent of fracking waste water flows back to the original drilling surface” (http://occupytheory.org/list-of-pros-and-cons-of-fracking/) Hydraulic fracturing causes pollution in several different aspects. Oil and gas companies are not required to provide a list of chemicals used in the process which causes those in the areas where drilling is present to not be able to adapt correctly to these toxins. According to research, a few of the chemicals that have been found present in fracking include; benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. These three chemicals are known to the scientific community to cause harmful effects on the health of people. Also, the article, “Pros and Cons of Fracking: 5 Key Issues” explains that because of the dropping gas prices, drilling use will
The actual technique involves “pumping a slurry of water, sand and chemicals underground to fracture shale formations and release hydrocarbons” ("Fracking", 2013, p. 276). Modern procedures use a high degree of manipulation in order to extract the natural gas. The natural gas from fracking is dispersed in rock, and can only be retrieved by using specialized removal techniques (Palliser, 2012). These specialized techniques have many unintended consequences. For instance, the current method of fracking may cause the issue of flowback. Flowback occurs when the internal pressure of the rock formation causes the injected watery, chemical mixture to return to the surface with other naturally occurring substances (Palliser, 2012). This flowback is often injected back underground or can be processed by wastewater treatment plants, where it is later discharged as surface water (Palliser, 2012). Indisputably, the disposal and generation of flowback is one of the main concerns regarding hydraulic fracking. The wastewater developed from fracking procedures is often inappropriately handled and is sometimes sprayed onto rural roads and forests (Finkel & Hays, 2013). As a result, the surface water may come in contact with living organisms and can cause a plethora of issues. For fracking opponents, their driving force is the ill effects of fracking on the environment and overall health. Similarly, the possibility of drinking or coming in contact with chemically laden byproducts
Fracking is a safe way of producing oil and natural gasses. Some of the benefits of fracking are lower energy costs, because of the large deposits of oil and gas there has been a big increase in available resources and a big drop in prices. This can lead to a sustainable amount of savings for consumers. Another benefit of fracking is that consumers of energy are seeing economic change in global prices and lowered taxes on gas and oil. More jobs are being created and our reliability on other country’s oil is reduced significantly. For the most part, most of the fracking fluid stays in the ground but when it does come up, it’s either dumped in rivers and streams, left in open pits and contaminates our air, or it gets hauled away. The toxic fracking
Fracking is a process in which water, sand, and chemicals are injected into the ground to extract natural resources such as oil and natural gas (Boone and Robinson, 2015, p.69). The process of fracking is the vertical
Fracking is a highly controversial practice that utilizes the injection of water, chemicals and abrasives to extract relatively inaccessible pockets of natural resources. Although fracking has the potential to benefit the domestic economy, the practice of hydraulic fracturing, if left unregulated and mismanaged poses significant risks to the environment, the ecosystem and safety.
As the earth progresses and becomes older, life can be hard to sustain when technology becomes more advanced and fossil fuels are being burned rapidly. New methods are being created to support the continuous demand for energy, but some methods are harming the planet rather than creating new opportunities. Hydraulic fracturing has done more harm than good for the Earth by creating unprecedented earthquakes and also contaminating water.
Fracking contaminates the water (rivers, lakes, bays,) and pollutes the air. “Extracting natural gases, toxic chemicals must be pumped into the shale at a high pressure.” (Dr Scott Elias). The negative side here is that in order to get the natural gases California needs, highly toxic chemicals must be injected to the ground to retrieve oil and gas. The toxic fumes can affect the air causing disease or infection in the human environment. Diseases and infections such as cancer are found in the fluids they use for fracking. These hazards are “often laced with contaminants such as