THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
THURSDAY, AUGUST 22, 2013
PAGE 23A
ENVIRONMENT
Hydraulic fracturing pollutes water with unknown chemicals, carcinogens
Hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" has been flowin in and out of the public spotlight for years. It's been touted by the Obama administration and the industry as the savior of American energy dependence but it's no silver bullet. The cost is insane and the navoff is underwhelming.
Hydraulic fracturing is, briefly, the process of drilling deep into the ground to find a layer of shale. After finding this rock layer, drilling continues horizontally for a short distance. Small detonating charges line the inside of this horizontal section and are set off to create small cracks in the rock. Water and chemicals are pumped at high pressures to widen the cracks and allow oil and gas to flow back through. Most of the water is removed and it becomes an otherwise regular well.
It seems simple, really, just optimizing our reserves and potentially creating a new industry within an industry. More oil, more jobs, and more money in our pocket all add up to be a slam-dunk. The Environmental Protection Agency claims it's impact-free and a dozen state legislators agree.
But the environmental and human impacts rear their heads almost immediately. Just below the surface of this energy sustainability network are horror stories of water contamination, issues with basic practicality, and censorship by the EPA.
The fracking industry reported via voluntary study in 2011 (FracFocus.org) that each individual "frack" requires an average of five
By Wil Kenney
wkenney@kansan.com
million gallons of water. There are tens of thousands of natural gas wells in the United States that each frack upwards of fifteen times until depletion. The amount of energy expended and pollutants emitted when trucking billions of gallons of water to and from these wells is astronomical.
The EPA and industry tout that less than 1 percent of the solution is made up of chemicals. That sounds innocent enough until you realize that 1 percent of one hundred billion gallons of water is actually a massive amount of carcinogenic chemicals being pumped directly into the earth every single year.
And for the record, the public isn't fully aware of what's inside this chemical solution. The Bush/ Cheney "Halliburton Loophole" more or less exempted fracking from EPA regulation on drinking water sources. The fracking industry's voluntary report, FracFocus.org, leaves more than 65 percent of the chemicals in the standard solution completely unidentified.
If all of these fracturing wells were miles away from homes and neighborhoods, the cost of transporting the water necessary would likely nullify profits, so more and more "frack sites" are nearby communities. Some are smack in the middle of neighborhoods.
This sort of proximity is what led to the stories of faucet water being lit on fire in Dimock, Pennsylvania.
Earlier this year, the Associated Press reported on a geologic report from analysis in Weatherford, Texas that would have directly linked fracking to methane contamination in a local water source. A scuffle between the EPA and the drilling company followed and ended with the EPA shutting everything down and gagging the geologic report.
nia. The chemicals that aren't successfully pumped from the soil are draining into drinking water aquifers and other fresh water sources.
Among all the rampant censorship, analysis, and debate, keep in mind that another source of natural gas won't cut prices at the pump. Natural gas isn't used in American cars and most of it is being exported to Europe and Japan, where it can be sold for three to five times the price.
If you think fracting is worth the costs or not, one thing is absolutely clear: fracting is at best a controversial Band-Aid. Our reserves may last us another decade but it's no more than a temporary solution. Whatever the environmental or human impacts may be today, procrastinating on the natural resource crisis will almost guarantee those impacts ten times over in the coming years. It isn't renewable, isn't sustainable, and only carries a risk of hurting ourselves even more.
Wil Kenney is a sophomore majoring in journalism from Leawood. Follow him on Twitter @WilKenney.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Energy company Cuadrilla Resources Ltd. has temporarily suspended drilling at an exploration site in southern England following protests from residents and environmentalists opposed to shale gas extraction. The company said Aug. 16 it had stopped work on police advice, but would resume "as soon as it is safe to do so."
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