During our studies over the course of this week about
hydraulic fracturing, we discussed even more pro’s and con’s than I had
originally realized. I did not know that the gas they’re extracting burns
cleaner and coal, however I also didn’t know what a massive amount of water is
needed for the fracking process. In a Huffington Post Article, good and bad
things about this process are laid out, and left for people to make their own
decisions about. Personally, the negatives frightened me much more than the
positives swayed me.
After reading this article, we watched the
documentary “Gasland” about a man who went around to residential areas close to
fracking sites and observed the impacts, mostly the fact that they’re water had
been polluted with dangerous chemicals and toxins. The worst part of it was, many
of the companies involved would not cooperate with any sort of investigation, would
not claim responsibility, and found ways around any attempt these people made to
prove it. People were stuck with nothing more than their contaminated water, water
so polluted in some places that it would actually catch on fire.
Personally, I don’t believe fracking is worth the
environmental devastation that it creates. However, I’m a realist in the sense
that I believe that some businessmen aren’t just going to allow their operations
to be shut down and the fact is that we probably won’t stop it as long as
theres money to be made. So I propose this very simple solution. You want to
use fracking? Fine. But you need to play by a reasonable set of guidelines, not
ones you make up. You must disclose what you’re pumping into the ground for starters;
people have a right to know. I don’t care what the most cost effective method
is, you must do all you can do to use methods that will not contaminate the
surrounding areas. If you contaminate someone’s water supply, guess what, you
just bought them a lifetime supply of water or a way to fix it. You can’t just
go around destroying people’s livelihood and not be held responsible for it,
that is not an acceptable way to conduct business. No matter what your views on
fracking, allowing companies to behave in such a (in my opinion) despicable manner
is not something anyone should be okay with or support.
I, personally, am slightly torn on this issue. One pro that I really like is that fracking lubricates the joints and faults which the water is being pumped into. The thing about this that I like is that a lubricated fault line will either flow smoothly or at the very least have multiple small earthquakes (say 1 every 10 years) that will not cause substantial damage to infrastructure or property, whereas leaving faults alone as is, allows the pressure to build up higher and higher causing a much larger earthquake, but it would be rarer (say 1 every 100 years). This one larger earthquake would deal much greater damage all at once, often times crippling some form of infrastructure. With this in mind, I do agree with your opinion on needing controls in place to limit or control the ground water contamination.
ReplyDeleteThanks brother, very valid points made. Agree with it or not, we can't allow people to destroy water (which is becoming a more and more scarce resource) and not do anything to fix it after the fact
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