Fracking for resources

The procedure used to extract natural gas out of shale rock deep within the ground is called hydrolic fracturing (fracking).

Several states around the country are using this controversial process even while the EPA is conducting studies to determine if this process is harmful to the environment.

So here we have the EPA doing studies to see if this procedure is too damaging to our environment to use, while companies are currently using the procedure and damaging the environment. Anyone else see any problem with this picture?

The EPA will undoubtedly wait until gas companies have extracted all they can out of the ground before ruling that this procedure is too damaging to the environment to continue. The gas companies will put up a token show of protest knowing they have already gotten what they want out of it, and then will go along with the ruling to show what good stewards of the land they are. Quite the cozy little arrangement.

Let’s examine how harmful this fracking is:

Fracking pumps millions of gallons of fluid into the ground. This fluid is composed of water, sand and toxic chemicals to help the sand in the fluid travel farther into the formation. More chemicals break down the mixture so it flows back easily, and biocides keep fungi and bacteria from growing in the passageways so they don’t block the gas.

A high percentage of the fluid that goes down into the well comes back up in the form of wastewater. This wastewater not only contains the toxic chemicals that are pumped down such as friction reducers, foaming agents, biocides, surfactants and scale inhibitors but also brings up Normally Occurring Radioactive material (NORMS), metals such as cadmium, arsenic, chromium, lead, mercury and copper, hydrocarbons and organic compounds like methanol, chlorinated phenols, formaldehyde, benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene, xylene and acrylamide.

The wastewater is pumped into impoundments, or holding ponds, at the well site and then must be trucked across our roads and through our communities to get to one of only two treatment facilities in Auburn and Watertown that are treating it and releasing into nearby rivers.

At every step of the process there are multiple opportunities for contamination to our water supply, our air and our land through leaks, failures and the inevitable mechanical and human error. There is no way to expect that you can introduce this toxic cocktail into the environment and not have severe consequences.

Must we continue this charade of protecting the environment while corporations and the EPA continue their cozy profitable arrangement? They aren’t fooling any of us. But as usual those in power hold all the cards in preventing us from stopping them.

While gas drilling using fracking is currently threatening ecologically important areas such as the Catskills and the Upper Delaware, the practice is about to affect a huge swath from there west through the vineyards and farms of the Finger Lakes on down through Allegheny State Park and beyond the borders to West Virginia all while the EPA drags its feet convinced its working for the American people.

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