Fight Over Fracking

The state of New York has some of the cleanest drinking water in the country, but natural gas drilling is threatening water resources there. At issue is whether drilling companies know enough about how to protect groundwater sources from contamination by a drilling procedure called "fracking," the term used for the hydraulic fracturing of rock formations to make them produce more gas. Citizens also doubt whether existing rules and regulations can assure drilling companies will do enough to protect water sources, and whether there are enough qualified staff people to enforce current and future drilling regulations. In the Gulf of Mexico, drilling technology outpaced the industry's knowledge of how to cap an out-of-control well and clean up an environmental disaster caused by drilling activities. Similar problems exist with the natural gas drilling. Increasingly, land owners report that exposure to fracking chemicals has made them sick and that fracking contaminated streams and drinking water wells on their property, rendering them unusable. Gas companies fight having to reveal the secret cocktail of chemicals that make up their proprietary "fracking fluids," and fracking was exempted from the national Safe Drinking Water Act during the George W. Bush Administration, so there is little help for citizens trying to stop drilling companies from using the procedure. A Web site called "Clean Water Not Dirty Drilling" is urging people to contact the New York State Senate to ask for a "time out" on drilling until more is known about how to make the activity safer.

Comments

check out what's happening in Pennsylvania. ALL the corruption in our state gov is on display as our state forests are being vandalized and our watersheds polluted while no severance tax has even been enacted!

They're fracking all over Colorado, too! No disclosure about what they're using - just a multi-million dollar "trust us" message from the industry, and the standard "don't interfere with capitalism" message from The Right. What could be more irreversible than injecting stuff deep in the ground, ESPECIALLY when the purpose is to make the rock MORE permeable! We also had some guy, a couple years back, that was convicted of "hiding"/disposing of toxic waste by injecting it into one of his wells. I think THAT deserved a life sentence. Talk about a menace to society! Re: New York's water supply. I thought there was, already, a huge plume of PCB-laden groundwater working its way into the Hudson drainage?

In Canada, fracking has several processes. One for oil, natural gas and WATER. For those that do not know when any type of hydrofracking takes place, all well veins within the fracking areas become unblocked. Think about this for a moment, if someone is living in a down slope of a oil or gas well their own water well becomes contaminated. Now really think about it, a cities water table is contaminated this is a real desaster. Why is it that money always prevails over environment disaster that can be thwarted or avoided completly. I sympathize with all the folks that are subjected to this type of abuse from corporation or government be it US, Canada or Spain. When are we going to wake up! http://www.squiddo.com/websitetrafficreport

Now a day every where its getting fracking. we need to think about this issue.very dirty water all this fracking we have to fight over this

Fracking also happens in many country and It causes the water pollution. Usually, it means one or more substances have built up in water to such an extent that they cause problems for animals or people

Fracking is just one of the many tentacles of the monster we've created in our greed for oil, gas and other relatively inexpensive forms of energy, folks. We either need to learn to do with less or different kinds of energy or maybe learn to do without. Ouch!

Contamination can go undetected for years until it is detected, and then it's already too late. It can cause serious illnesses, diseases..