Hydrolic Fracking Research Paper Essay Example for Free

Hydrolic Fracking look for Paper EssayHydraulic fracturing is a process utilize in nine out of 10 immanent gas wells in the United States, where millions of gallons of piddle, sand and chemicals atomic number 18 pumped underground to break apart the rock and release the gas. Scientists are worried that the chemicals used in fracturing may pose a threat either underground or when waste smooth-spokens are handled and sometimes spilled on the surface. The natural gas persistence defends hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as well(p) and efficient. Thomas J. Pyle, president of the Institute for Energy Research, a pro-industry non-profit organization, claims fracking has been a widely deployed as safe extraction technique, dating back to 1949. What he doesnt say is that until recently sinew companies had used low-pressure methods to extract natural gas from fields adpressed to the surface than the current high-pressure technology that extracts more gas, but uses significantly more peeing, chemicals, and elements.The industry claims well cut in the Marcellus Shale will bring some(prenominal) hundred thousand jobs, and has minimal health and environmental risk. President Barack Obama in his January 2012 State of the Union, said he believes the development of natural gas as an energy source to replace fossil fuels could generate 600,000 jobs. However, research studies by many economists and others debunk the idea of significant job creation. Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum connectedness of America, says no evidence directly connects injection of fracking fluid into shale with aquifer contamination. Fracking has never been found to contaminate a water well, says Christine Cronkright, communications director for the Pennsylvania Department of Health. Research studies and numerous incidents of water contamination prove otherwise. In late 2010, equipment failure may have led to ototoxic levels of chemicals in the well w ater of at least a dozen families in Conoquenessing Township in Bradford County.Township officials and Rex Energy, although acknowledging that two of the oil production wells had problems with the casings, claimed there were pollutants in the drinking water forwards Rex moved into the area. John Fair disagrees. Everybody had good water a year ago, Fair told environmental writer and activist Iris Marie blush in February 2012. Bloom says residents told her the color of water changed to red, orange, and gray after Rex began drilling. Among the chemicals detected in the well water, in addition to methane gas, were ammonia, arsenic, chloromethane, iron, manganese, t-butyl alcohol, and toluene. While not acknowledging that its actions could have caused the pollution, Rex did provide fresh water to the residents, but then stopped doing so on Feb. 29, 2012, after the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) said the well water was safe. The residents absolutely disagreed and staged protests against Rex environmental activists and other residents trucked in portable water jugs to help the affected families.The Marcellus Outreach Butler blog (MOB) declared that residents lives have been in earnest disrupted and their health has been austerely impacted. To just close the book on investigations into their troubles when so many indicators meridian to the accountability of the gas industry for the disruption of their lives is unbelievable . In April 2011, near Towanda, Pa., sevener families were evacuated after about 10,000 gallons of wastewater contaminated an agricultural field and a stream that flows into the Susquehanna River, the result of an equipment failure, according to the Bradford County Emergency Management Agency.The following month, DEP fined Chesapeake Energy $900,000, the largest derive in the states history, for allowing methane gas to pollute the drinking water of 16 families in Bradford County during the previous year.The DEP not ed there may have been toxic methane emissions from as many as six wells in five towns. The DEP also fined Chesapeake $188,000 for a fire at a well in chapiter County that injured three workers. In January 2012, an equipment failure at a drill site in Susquehanna County led to a spill of several thousand gallons of fluid for almost a half-hour, causing potential pollution, according to the DEP. In its citation to Carizzo Oil and Gas, the DEP strongly recommended that the company cease drilling at all 67 wells until the cause of this problem and a solution are identified. In December 2011, the federal Environmental Protection Agency concluded that fracking operations could be responsible for groundwater pollution.Todays methods make gas drilling a filthy business. You know its bad when nearby residents can light the water coming out of their tap on fire, says Larry Schweiger, president of the National Wildlife Federation. Whats causing the fire is the methane from the drilling opera tions.A ProPublica investigation in 2009 revealed methane contamination was general in drinking water in areas around fracking operations in Colorado, Texas, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania. The presence of methane in drinking water in Dimock, Pa., had become the focal point for Josh mix ups investigative documentary, Gasland, which received an Academy Award nomination in 2011 for Outstanding Documentary Fox also received an Emmy for non-fiction directing. Foxs interest in fracking intensified when a natural gas company offered $100,000 for mineral rights on property his family owned in Milanville, in the uttermost(a) northeast part of Pennsylvania, about 60 miles east of Dimock. Research by a team of scientists from Duke University revealed methane contamination of shallow drinking water systems that is associated with shale-gas extraction. The data and conclusions, print in the May 2011 issue of the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, noted that not only did most drinking wells near drilling sites have methane, but those closest to the drilling wells, about a half-mile, had an average of 17 times the methane of those of other wells.Some of the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturingor liberated by itare carcinogens, Dr. Sandra Steingraber told members of the Environmental Conservation and Health committee of the youthful York State Assembly. Dr. Steingraber, a biologist and distinguished scholar in hearth at Ithaca College, pointed out that some of the chemicals are neurological poisons with suspected links to learning deficits in children, while others are asthma triggers. Some, especially the radioactive ones, are known to bioaccumulate in milk. Others are reproductive toxicants that can contribute to pregnancy loss. An investigation by New York Times fielder Ian Urbina, based upon thousands of unreported EPA documents and a confidential study by the natural gas industry, concluded, Radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully d iluted in rivers and other waterways. Urbina versed that wastewater from fracking operations was about 100 times more toxic than federal drinking water standards 15 wells had readings about 1,000 times higher(prenominal) than standards.Research by Dr. Ronald Bishop, a biochemist at SUNY/Oneonta, suggests that fracking to extract methane gas is highly likely to degrade air, surface water and ground-water quality, to harm humans, and to negatively impact aquatic and forest ecosystems. He notes that potential exposure effects for humans will include poisoning of susceptible tissues, endocrine disruption syndromes, and elevated risk for certain(prenominal) cancers. Every well, says Dr. Bishop, will generate a sediment discharge of approximately eight tons per year into local waterways, further threatening federally be mollusks and other aquatic organisms. In addition to the environmental pollution by the fracking process, Dr. Bishop believes intensive use of diesel-fuel equipment wil l degrade air quality that could affect humans, livestock, and crops. Equally beta are questions about the impact of as many as 200 diesel-fueled trucks each day bringing water to the site and then removing the waste water. In addition to the normal diesel emissions of trucks, there are also problems of leaks of the contaminated water.We need to know how diesel fuel got into our water supply, says Diane Siegmund, a clinical psychologist from Towanda, Pa. It wasnt there before the companies drilled wells its here now, she says. Siegmund is also concerned about contaminated dust and mud. There is no oversight on these, she says, but those trucks are muddy when they leave the well sites, and dust may have impact miles from the well sites. Research strongly implicates exposure to gas drilling operations in serious health effects on humans, companion animals, livestock, horses, and wildlife, according to Dr. Michelle Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Dr. Robert E. Oswald, a biochemist and professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University. Their study, produce in New Solutions, an academic journal in environmental health, documents evidence of milk contamination, breeding problems, and cow mortality in areas near fracking operations as higher than in areas where no fracking occurred.Drs. Bamberger and Oswald noted that some of the symptoms present in humans from what may be polluted water from fracking operations include rashes, headaches, dizziness, vomiting, and severe irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat. For animals, the symptoms often led to reproductive problems and death. Significant impact upon wildlife is also noted in a 900-page Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) conducted by New Yorks Department of Environmental Conservation. According to the EIS, In addition to loss of habitat, other potential direct impacts on wildlife from drilling in the Marcellus Shale include change magnitude mortality . . . altered microclimates, and increased traffic, no ise, lighting, and well flares. The impact, according to the report, may include a loss of genetic diversity, species isolation, population declines . . . increased predation, and an increase of invasive species.The report concludes that because of fracking, there is little to no place in the study areas where wildlife would not be impacted, leading to serious cascading ecological consequences. The impact of course affects the quality of milk and center of attention production as animals drink and graze near areas that have been taken over by the natural gas industry. The response by the industry and its semipolitical allies to the scientific studies of the health and environmental effects of fracking has approached the issue in a manner similar to the tobacco industry that for many years jilted the link between smoking and cancer, say Drs. Bamberger and Oswald. Not only do they call for full disclosure and testing of air, water, soil, animals, and humans, but point out that with escaped oversight, the gas drilling boom . . . will remain an uncontrolled health experiment on an enormous scale.Bibliography of Works Citedhttp//www.marcellusoutreachbutler.org/http//www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/19/the-perils-of-fracking/ www.coalitiontoprotectnewyork.orghttp//psehealthyenergy.net/data/Bamberger_Oswald_NS22_in_press.pdf http//www.scribd.com/doc/97449702/100-Fracking-Victimshttp//www.nytimes.com/2011/08/04/us/04natgas.html?pagewanted=all http//steingraber.com/http//frack.mixplex.com/content/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-fracking http//www.hydraulicfracturing.com/Pages/information.aspxhttp//www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracture/http//geology.com/articles/hydraulic-fracturing/