Hydraulic Fracturing in the Midwest

Do you live in the Midwest? Do you know of any nearby natural gas drilling sites? Can you light the water coming out of your faucet on fire? While the last question seems a little absurd, hundreds of midwestern Americans will answer yes. As you can imagine this water is detrimental to your health and is all a product of groundwater contamination due to Hydraulic Fracturing.
Hydraulic Fracturing is a "well- stimulation" technique in which more than a million gallons of water, sand, and chemicals at high pressure are injected 10,000 feet into the ground resulting in the release of natural gas. This process has detrimental effects on the surrounding environment. Groundwater is contaminated, over 600 different chemicals are used, acid rain falls, and cancerous humans are all a by product of the harvesting of natural gas.
During the fracking process methane gas and toxic chemicals leach out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater. Methane concentrations are 17x higher in drinking water wells near fracturing sites than in normal drinking water. Waste fluid is left in air pits to evaporate, releasing harmful VPC's contaminating air, creating acid rain as well as ground level ozone.
500,000 active gas wells X 8 million gallons of water per job X 18 times each well can be fracked = 72 trillion gallons of water and 360 billion gallons of chemicals are needed to run our countries current gas wells.



Alternative solutions have been, and are being developed such as nuclear and solar power. The main idea is to redirect attention from fossil fuels to renewable resources such as wind and the sun. Prioritizing nuclear energy is already fairly developed therefore not requiring extensive research or time.

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"What Is Hydraulic Fracturing?" Top Stories RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Dec. 2014