From earthquakes to poisoning drinking water this image spells out all the concerns
An info graphic posted on CleanTechnica outlines the concerns that people around the world are raising about hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – as it is commonly called, is an industrial process where poisonous chemicals are mixed with water and injected into the ground at high pressures to get to natural gas supplies. As the practice has become more common in Colorado, Wyoming and Pennsylvania it has been met with an outcry of concerns. This latest info graphic outlines the totality of the concerns. Below the Checks and Balances Project breaks down the info graphic and the five major threats fracking presents to both people and the planet.
The economic threat
While gas companies frequently tell the public that increasing our gas supplies by “fracking” the ground beneath us will lead to an economic boom, those living in heavily fracked areas often tell a far different story. Dee Hoffmeister of Garfield County, Colorado is one example of the disconnect between the rhetoric of the gas industry and the reality of what is happening on the ground. Hoffmeister saw a major explosion at a fracking well near her home. Since drilling began Hoffmeister says she has suffered from all sorts of ailments. The retiree who moved to Garfield County from the Chicago area had to fight back tears when she spoke with the Checks and Balances Project: The drilling ruined her “dream retirement house,” she says in the video interview.
The threat to families
Beyond the threat that fracking has imposed on the personal finances of homeowners from coast to coast, CleanTechnica shows another difficult position fracking has put many families in. After frack-pads are constructed, waste pits are dug or constructed and truck traffic greatly increases in rural communities, families are left with a difficult choice: Try to fight to reclaim their neighborhoods or take cash for the diminished values of their homes. But many homeowners have faced an uphill battle after trying to fight against the fracking industrial complex. Lisa Bracken, another Garfield County resident whose family has suffered from diminishing health affects following the proliferation of frack-wells in her neighborhood, explained the special treatment the gas industry gets, which in turn make s them very hard to fight against. “This industry has had a hundred years of bullying everybody and doing anything that they want to do and getting away with it. They have got exemptions out the wazoo. It defies common sense, from the community’s right to know to the Clean Water Act,” said Bracken in the winter of 2011. Rifle Colorado resident, Leslie Robinson described the entire situation for locals as “economic blackmail.”
Contaminating water supplies
As families in fracked neighborhoods deal with diminishing home values and “economic blackmail,” the concern most focus on is the threat to public water supplies. The image posted on CleanTechnica as well as other images and testimony from experts articulates exactly how this could happen. Experts speaking with the Checks and Balances Project including former University of professor Dr. Conrad Volz say the issue is the frack wells, like all wells, are likely to leak and be compromised by the geologic process. This is bad news for aquifers, which are often drilled through to get to gas supplies. “When the cement shrinks it pulls away from the geological layer that it is sealed from, and that allows it to serve as a conduit straight up into ground water aquifers,” said Volz during an interview after a meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. To see a more detailed chart of how fracking chemicals can enter water supplies please click here. And to see how the gas industry has campaigned to discredit Volz and other well respected scientists question the fracturing process please click here.
The methane factor
When water contamination from fracking is discussed it is often in the context of methane gas. Methane leaks in gas pipelines have been the subject of a study by Cornell University researches. Methane from fracking is believed to be the culprit for flammable tap water in heavily fracked neighborhoods. Methane bubbles in the West Divide Creek in Garfield County, Colorado is also what lead Dr. Geoffrey Thyne to link fracking to ground water contamination several years ago. Yet, face-saving efforts on the part of the gas industry have lead to claims that methane is simply a naturally occurring part of drinking water supplies. While this is partially true, the CleanTechnica info graphic points out a very important reality: The closer you are to a gas well the more likely one is to experience methane contamination in his or her drinking water. In fact, according to information from the US Department of the Interior, a citizen living within an mile of a gas well is likely to experience 17 times the methane contamination levels compared to a citizen living farther away. To learn more about Dr. Geoffrey Thyne’s findings of methane contamination in ground water in Garfield County, Colorado please click here.
The earthquake factor
Perhaps the most interesting issue arising with hydraulic fracturing is the impact the practice is having on seismic activity. Since freaking proliferated in Texas, Arkansas and the United Kingdom, earthquakes have been occurring at an alarming rate. Guy, Arkansas has been the most widely reported instance of this. The area around the small town has seen more than a thousand tremors in the last year. In Texas more than 180 minor tremors have sprung un in what is generally a seismically inactive part of the United States. Across the pond in the United Kingdom, a 2.3 magnitude earthquake hit in April of 2011 near a heavily fracked area. A month later a 1.5 magnitude earthquake shook the neighborhoods near the Preese Hall Drilling site. The info graphic to the left here not only shows where these tremors are striking, but it also shows what is causing this activity. Generally, the quakes hit frack-sites where storage wells are drilled by. These containment wells hold the massive about of chemical wastewater produced from hydraulic fracking. These types of containment wells were determined to be the cause of several quakes near Derby, Colorado in the 1960s and in Trinidad, Colorado and decade later. Similar seismic activity happened in Texas after waste disposal wells were drilled near fault lines. As of the summer of 2011, the earthquake situation in Arkansas got so serious that the state ordered a moratorium on all fracking activity that required the drilling of encased wastewater wells.
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