Hydrolic Fracking Research Paper Essay

Hydraulic fracturing is a process used in baseball club out of 10 essential gas swell in the United States, where millions of gallons of piss, sand and chemicals ar handle 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 fluids are handled and sometimes spilled on the surface. The raw(a) gas industry defends hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, as safe and efficient. doubting 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, date back to 1949. What he doesnt say is that until recently energy companies had used low-pressure methods to extract natural gas from fields closer to the surface than the current high-pressure technology that extracts more gas, save uses significantly more piddle, chemicals, and elements.The ind ustry claims well applicationing in the Marcellus Shale will bring several hundred molarity jobs, and has minimal wellness 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 an(prenominal) an opposite(prenominal) economists and others debunk the idea of significant job creation. Barry Russell, president of the Independent Petroleum Association of America, says no curtilage directly connects injection of fracking fluid into shale with aquifer contamination. Fracking has never been found to contaminate a irrigate well, says Christine Cronkright, communications coach for the pascal Department of Health. Research studies and numerous incidents of water contamination prove otherwise. In late 2010, equipment to a fault-ran may apply led to toxic levels of chemicals in the well water of at le ast a dozen families in Conoquenessing Township in Bradford County.Township officials and Rex Energy, although acknowledging that two of the boring wells had problems with the casings, claimed there were pollutants in the alcoholism water before Rex moved into the area. John Fmelodic phrase disagrees. Everybody had good water a twelvemonth ago, Fair told environmental writer and activist Iris Marie Bloom 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 non 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 an d 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 disadvantageously disrupted and their health has been severely impacted. To just close the book on investigations into their troubles when so many indicators head word to the accountability of the gas industry for the waver of their lives is unbelievable . In April 2011, near Towanda, Pa., seven families were evacuated after closely 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 prudence Agency.The following month, DEP fined Chesapeake Energy $900,000, the largest amount 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 noted t here 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 Washington 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 trading operations could be responsible for groundwater pollution. right aways methods make gas drilling a filthy business. You know its bad when close 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 d rilling operations.A ProPublica investigation in two hundred9 revealed methane contamination was widespread 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 Foxs investigative documentary, Gasland, which received an Academy submit nomination in 2011 for Outstanding Documentary Fox also received an Emmy for non-fiction directing. Foxs cheer in fracking intensified when a natural gas company offered $100,000 for mineral rights on property his family possess in Milanville, in the extreme 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, published in the whitethorn 2011 issue of the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Scienc es, 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 bonnie 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 fresh York State Assembly. Dr. Steingraber, a biologist and howling(a) scholar in residence at Ithaca College, pointed out that some of the chemicals are neurological poisons with suspected associate 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 going away. An investigation by New York Times reporter 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 diluted in rivers and other waterways. Urbina learned 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 than standards.Research by Dr. Ronald Bishop, a biochemist at SUNY/Oneonta, suggests that fracking to extract methane gas is super 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 cancers. Every well, says Dr. Bishop, will generate a sediment discharge of some eight tons per year into local waterways, further threatening federally endangered mollusks and other aquatic organisms. In addition to the environmental pollution by the fracking process, Dr. Bishop believes intensive use of diesel-fuel equi pment will degrade air quality that could affect humans, livestock, and crops. Equally important 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 regulation 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, abetter _or_ abettor animals, livestock, horses, and wildlife, according to Dr. Michelle Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Dr. Rober t E. Oswald, a biochemist and professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University. Their study, published 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 very much led to reproductive problems and death. Significant impact upon wildlife is also noted in a 900-page Environmental carry on 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 increase mortality . . . modify microclima tes, and increased traffic, noise, 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 meat production as animals drink and graze near areas that have been taken over by the natural gas industry. The resolution by the industry and its political 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 rejected the link among 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 o ut that with lax 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/ circumscribe/scientific-study-links-flammable-drinking-water-fracking http//www.hydraulicfracturing.com/Pages/information.aspxhttp//www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracture/http//geology.com/articles/hydraulic-fracturing/