Writing final research paper fracking
Katie Schlagenhaft
English 105
Laura Moran
2 December 2014
Fracking in Pennsylvania
Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is damaging our watersheds and for some of us, fracking sites are in our own backyards. The Environmental Protection Agency seems to have a few holes in it, as you will see in my research. First, we need to understand how fracking works. It is a means of extracting natural gas and oil that lies within a shale rock formation thousands of feet below earth’s surface. When a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and all different chemicals are injected under high pressure, into the well. With all the pressure, it causes mini earthquakes, fracturing the ground and allowing natural gas to flow more freely. These wells are in locations that were previously inaccessible, ruining our beautiful countryside and being drilled below our reservoirs and water systems. Horizontal fracking uses a mixture of up to 600 different chemicals along with water. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens and toxins including lead, uranium, mercury, ethylene glycol, radium, methanol, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde. Let’s do the math; 500,000 active gas wells in the U.S, multiply that by 8 million gallons of water, multiply the 18 times a well can be fracked. That comes to 72 trillion gallons of water, 360 billion gallons of chemicals needed to run current gas wells. (dangersoffracking.com)
The instances of water contamination are not unique to New York and Northern Pennsylvania. For the first time, Pennsylvania has made public 243 cases of contamination of private drinking wells from oil and gas drilling operations. The cases occurred in 22 counties, with Susquehanna, Tioga, Bradford, and Lycoming counties having the most incidences of contamination. In a few cases, one drilling operation contaminated the water of multiple wells, with water issues resulting from methane gas contamination, wells that went dry or undrinkable,
English 105
Laura Moran
2 December 2014
Fracking in Pennsylvania
Hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, is damaging our watersheds and for some of us, fracking sites are in our own backyards. The Environmental Protection Agency seems to have a few holes in it, as you will see in my research. First, we need to understand how fracking works. It is a means of extracting natural gas and oil that lies within a shale rock formation thousands of feet below earth’s surface. When a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and all different chemicals are injected under high pressure, into the well. With all the pressure, it causes mini earthquakes, fracturing the ground and allowing natural gas to flow more freely. These wells are in locations that were previously inaccessible, ruining our beautiful countryside and being drilled below our reservoirs and water systems. Horizontal fracking uses a mixture of up to 600 different chemicals along with water. Some of these chemicals are known carcinogens and toxins including lead, uranium, mercury, ethylene glycol, radium, methanol, hydrochloric acid and formaldehyde. Let’s do the math; 500,000 active gas wells in the U.S, multiply that by 8 million gallons of water, multiply the 18 times a well can be fracked. That comes to 72 trillion gallons of water, 360 billion gallons of chemicals needed to run current gas wells. (dangersoffracking.com)
The instances of water contamination are not unique to New York and Northern Pennsylvania. For the first time, Pennsylvania has made public 243 cases of contamination of private drinking wells from oil and gas drilling operations. The cases occurred in 22 counties, with Susquehanna, Tioga, Bradford, and Lycoming counties having the most incidences of contamination. In a few cases, one drilling operation contaminated the water of multiple wells, with water issues resulting from methane gas contamination, wells that went dry or undrinkable,