It's a Fracking Problem
Tyler Kerschner
HN English 11
1 May 2013
It’s a Fracking Problem Fracking is increasing in the U.S., but with this increase of natural gas comes an increase of safety concerns. The process of hydraulic fracking requires chemicals that can affect the families that live nearby. These chemicals also affect the environment on the land and in the air. With fracking there comes its positives and its negatives, some good and some bad. There are very few regulations on how fracking can be done, but in the regulations there isn't much help. Fracking for natural gas needs to be further regulated before it can continue. Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fracking fluid into the ground at high pressures in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas. The fracking procedure is different than the usual oil technique used to get oil. First, they drill vertically into the ground. After drilling, they inject chemicals, water and sand into the well. When the shale rock is finally cracked they begin extracting the natural gas. There are more than 500,000 active natural gas wells in the U.S. (Dangers of Fracking). The materials required at a fracking site are large amounts of water and sand. A fracking site needs one to eight million gallons of water and about four million pounds of sand (Dangers of Fracking). The graph below shows the process of how fracking is done. (cite). The water, sand, and fracking fluid that is put into the ground during the fracking procedure can have serious health effects. These materials have certain chemicals in them that can cause problems to families. The sand used in the process is “silica sand”. When the sand is blasted into wells, dust is released and goes into the air. With the sand particles now in the air, they can sometimes travel and affect people near the site. Effects from the “silica sand are silicosis and lung cancer”. “Silicosis could take years, even decades to appear and cannot be reversed or
HN English 11
1 May 2013
It’s a Fracking Problem Fracking is increasing in the U.S., but with this increase of natural gas comes an increase of safety concerns. The process of hydraulic fracking requires chemicals that can affect the families that live nearby. These chemicals also affect the environment on the land and in the air. With fracking there comes its positives and its negatives, some good and some bad. There are very few regulations on how fracking can be done, but in the regulations there isn't much help. Fracking for natural gas needs to be further regulated before it can continue. Fracking is the process of drilling and injecting fracking fluid into the ground at high pressures in order to fracture shale rocks to release natural gas. The fracking procedure is different than the usual oil technique used to get oil. First, they drill vertically into the ground. After drilling, they inject chemicals, water and sand into the well. When the shale rock is finally cracked they begin extracting the natural gas. There are more than 500,000 active natural gas wells in the U.S. (Dangers of Fracking). The materials required at a fracking site are large amounts of water and sand. A fracking site needs one to eight million gallons of water and about four million pounds of sand (Dangers of Fracking). The graph below shows the process of how fracking is done. (cite). The water, sand, and fracking fluid that is put into the ground during the fracking procedure can have serious health effects. These materials have certain chemicals in them that can cause problems to families. The sand used in the process is “silica sand”. When the sand is blasted into wells, dust is released and goes into the air. With the sand particles now in the air, they can sometimes travel and affect people near the site. Effects from the “silica sand are silicosis and lung cancer”. “Silicosis could take years, even decades to appear and cannot be reversed or