Christie Brennan Hydro-fracking

Although the issue of hydro-fracking has only recently begun to make public news, making it seem like a new technology or issue, hydrofracking has actually been around for over a hundred years. The concept dates back as far as the 1860s, when nitroglycerin was used to enhance production from oil wells in Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and other Appalachian states (Hines, 2011). The technology has developed over time, however, and simply stated, today, hydrofracking involves injecting great volumes of water containing roughly .5-1.5% blend of fracking chemicals whose role is to help loosen the gas and prop open the channels through which the gas flows for extraction (Goldstein, 2012). If fracking was defined, as industries often tend to convince the public that it is, as a single fracture of deep shale, then it would be a benign issue. However, the definition is truly a much broader and riskier one, because fracking, really, is defined when multiple areas are fracked, and defined by the entire industry, which has already proven to cause contamination and harmful effects (Mooney, 2011). Because hydrofracking effects the environment, and the environment connects everyone everywhere because the worlds population shares the Earths air and water, this issue is one that no one is left unaffected by, making solutions to the problem complicated and controversial. However, for the purposes of this research paper, the issue of hydrofracking and the extent of the issues effects will concentrate more closely on North Americas most popular area of drilling for natural gas, the North Eastern

states. In these states, the Marcellus shale exists, said to be the second largest natural gas field in the world, and is believed to have energy equivalent to three years worth of the worlds current use of oil (Goldstein, 2012). In an economical sense, fracking seems like a positive action. It offers Americans a cheap independence from foreign oil, and not only that, but farmers, homeowners, school boards, and town commissioners who have property on areas where Marcellus shale exists, can lease their subterranean energies, and collect royalties from the gas extracted (Humes, 2012). Some farmers even claim that the money collected has saved their farms. However, the ramifications are much greater, and in the long run, much more costly in terms of how it will affect the environment and peoples health. Since the shale boom first started, gas companies have been cited by Pennsylvania regulators for more than 4,100 violations. The citizen's group, PennEnvironment, studied 3,355 of these reported violations, from 2008 to 2011, and found that more than 70 percent likely posed "a direct threat to our environment (Humes, 2012). Those threats to our environment and health are numerous, and definitely not something to be overlooked. One of those threats is drinking water contamination, as fracking comes with possibility for spills, blowouts, and well failures that would contaminate groundwater supplies. Though fracking would save us economically in terms of energy supply, if water becomes contaminated, the costs are often so great that clean-up is not even attempted. In Dimock, Pennsylvania, Cabot Oil & Gas reported having spent $109,000 on systems to remove methane from well water for 14 local households, while in Colorado, cleanup of an underground gas seep has been ongoing for eight years at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not more (Dutzik & Ridlington, 2012).

The impact on human health reaches beyond the contamination of drinking water, extending to the chemicals in the air of communities in or surrounding fracking sites. The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce in a report released April of 2011 stated that oil and gas companies use over 75- chemicals during fracking. Some chemicals, such as salt, citric acid, and coffee, are fairly harmless, but others such as naphthalene, xylene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and formaldehyde, are known human carcinogens and can have any number of negative health effects, including but not limited to unprecedented sicknesses, cancers, and respiratory problems (Schmidt, 2011). Residents living near fracking sites have long suffered other health effects as well, such as headaches, eye irritation, nausea and nausea. This can be economically costly due to health care costs, absenteeism from the workplace, and reduced productivity (Dutzik & Ridlington, 2012). Though earlier it seemed fracking, because it makes energy available on home soil and therefore is less costly, when the impacts it will have on the environment and health come into play, its economic advantages become much more questionable. Because this issue remains controversial, the programs dedicated to resisting hydrofracking are limited, but they do exist, and will continue to grow in number as the problem increases. In terms of law and policy, New Jersey is currently a part of the Delaware River Basin Commission, along with New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania (although fracking has already occurred in some areas within this particular state), which has proposed a moratorium on fracking since May of 2010, and though various groups have tried to destroy these regulations until more studies prove the environmental impacts that would occur in the area, just by looking at what fracking has

done in other areas should be enough to convince people of its harm. Fracking causes great damage to water and air quality, and will move New Jersey in the opposite direction of the green future it is seeking if fracking is started (Greco, 2012). Outside of federal help, there are other organizations that have put programs together to try and reduce the pollution that hydro-fracking causes. Programs that try to stop hydro-fracking all together are somewhat irrational in thought because fracking is, for the most part, a successful operation that generates a great deal of energy. However, the programs that are the most functional and helpful are the ones that aim to reduce the pollution caused by hydro-fracking. Veering away from studies in the Northeast, but to a successful grant that was received by three University of Minnesota scientists, was a $600,000 grant to pursue and research technology that could reduce the harmful effects of fracking. Lead research, Larry Wackett, said that the technology under development is one that was similar to that used to clean up the Gulf oil spill of 2010, and involves the addition of bacteria that feed off of waste water that rids the area almost completely of containments. Though hydro-fracking has the potential to create seriously alarming effects on the environment and human population, it also has the potential to provide societies with a cheap energy source that is cleaner and safer, if properly extracted, than previous sources. If grants continue to be awarded towards programs that are looking to research and develop ways to minimize the negative outputs of hydro-fracking, the issue could transform from a risky, controversial problem full of uncertainties, into a technology with the potential to help create many opportunistic realities for a world of clean energy.

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Humes, E. (2012). FRACTURED LIVES. Sierra, 97(4). Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database. Hines, D. (2011, March 15). How Long Has Hydrofracking Been Practiced? Retrieved from The Institute for Energy and Environmental Research website: http://energy.wilkes.edu/pages/203.asp Mooney, C. (2011). The Truth About Fracking. Scientific American, 80-85. Schmidt, C. W. (2011). Blind Rush? Shale Gas Boom Proceeds amid Human Health Questions. Environmental Health Perspectives, 119(8). Retrieved from Academic Search Complete database.