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FRACKING WRECKS AMERICA’S BEDROCK


Clear and Present Dangers by Sandra Steingraber


chemicals. The rest is left behind. Fracking a gas well once requires 2 to 8 million gallons of fresh water, 10,000 to 40,000 gallons of chemicals and at least 1,000 diesel truck trips. Wells can be fracked multiple times before they run dry. Between 34,000 and 95,000 wells


are envisioned for New York State alone, according to Cornell University Engineer- ing Professor, Anthony Ingraffea, with 77,000 likely over the next 50 years. While New York residents are watching the result of fracking in other states and have elected a temporary moratorium on fracking, Pennsylvania has issued thou- sands of permits since 2004. Continued unknowns stir debate.


Current environmental policies must be realigned to safe- guard our health, sustain planetary life-support systems and free us from dependence upon fossil fuels.


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nder the misleading banner of clean and green, the global natu- ral gas rush is on, and nowhere more so than in the United States. We are literally shattering America’s bedrock to bring methane out of the Earth and consuming enormous quantities of pre- cious fresh water to do so, without any clear knowledge of the health or envi- ronmental consequences. Due to econo- mies of scale and required infrastructure, fracking is an all-or-nothing proposition, and each state decides its own fate. The Marcellus Shale forms a 600-mile-long basement foundation for communities spanning New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio. As the largest natural gas deposit in the country, it has become ground-zero for high-volume, slickwater hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Many more states are equally vulnerable (see GaslandTheMovie.com/map). In a two-to-200-foot-thick bedrock


layer up to a mile below Earth’s sur- face, the shale and its captured meth-


44 Collier/Lee Counties


ane, uranium, mercury, arsenic and lead have remained locked in place for millions of years. Above it lie drinking water aquifers.


Prior to the 21st century, capturing methane gas bubbles dispersed within such a horizontal formation, instead of a vertical well, was deemed uneco- nomical and labeled unrecoverable. Now, modern drills can bore down steel piping, some portions encased in cement, and direct pressure-packed explosions of up to 10,000 pounds per square inch of water, sand and chemi- cals into the rock, fracturing it. Next, hundreds of chemicals are injected to reduce friction (thus the term slickwa- ter) so that the fracking fluid can flow easily. The mixture includes acids, rust and scale inhibitors and pesticides to kill microbes, plus sometimes gelling agents, petroleum distillates, glycol ethers, form aldehyde and toluene. The result is that gas flows back up the borehole along with 30 to 60 per- cent of the injected cocktail of water and


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Meanwhile, scientists across leading institutions are certain of five universal impacts. First, fracking industrializes rural landscapes, clearing and frag- menting vital woodlands and wetlands. Second, fracking brings urban-style air pollution to the rural countryside. Third, accidents happen, necessitating the evacuation of surrounding com- munities. Fourth, fracking makes huge volumes of Earth’s limited fresh water disappear forever. Fifth, sooner or later, the gas will run out, while the environ- mental damage remains.


Known and Unknown


Dangers Beyond these certainties lie questions. Drilling proponents may claim that there have been no confirmed cases of drinking water contaminated by fracking. Yet in Pavillion, Wyoming, residents noticed a few years ago that their water was yellow, cloudy and oily, bubbled and smelled like chemicals. Some people felt sick. A joint investigation by the U.S.


Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry found petrochemicals— including diesel fuel, benzene, cyclohex- ane, methane, propane and ethane, plus traces of arsenic and a microbe-inhibiting pesticide—in 20 water wells. The EPA recommended that residents not drink their water. Turning on a fan while show- ering to avoid possible methane explo- sions was also suggested. Fracking enjoys special exemp-


tions from many regulations—the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Super-


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