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hydraulic fracturing has been used in conventional-style wells since the late 1940s When a vertical well shaft

hits a layer of shale, chemically treated water and sand are blasted down at high pressure to crack open the rock and liberate natural gas ability to turn a downward-plodding drill bit as much as 90 degrees and continue drilling within the layer, parallel to the ground surface, for thousands of additional feet The U.S. is estimated to have 827 trillion cubic feet of this unconventional shale gas within reachenough to last for decades horizontal fracking requires enormous volumes of water and chemicals Huge ponds or tanks are also needed to store the chemically laden flowback water that comes back up the hole after wells have been fractured the Department of Environmental Conservation recently unveiled a plan to give drilling companies access to 85 percent of the states portion of the Marcellus and Utica Shale formations Fracking would not be allowed in the New York City or Syracuse watersheds, because those water supplies are unfiltered between source and citizen up to 75 percent of what is blasted down comes back up In Pennsylvania, household taps have gone foul or lit on fire, and companies have been cited and fined water blasts deep underground can directly contaminate drinking water, by creating unexpected pathways for gas or liquid to travel between deep shale and shallow groundwater one of the wells contained chemicals sometimes used in frackingsuch as benzeneand was delivering flammable water Methane existed in 51 of the wells, but wells closer to drilling sites contained considerably more of it

Fracking is a process currently being used by oil and electric companies to obtain natural gas. They discovered that layers of rock that were previously unreachable contain large amounts of either oil or natural gas, and both could be used for power. This process requires a hole to be drilled into the shale level, located miles underground, and to have tubing lined and cemented into place so that the fracking process could be completed. This involved the injecting of chemical-containing water into the ground to create fractures in the rock level. The fractures release large amounts of the natural gas and the companies try to harvest this gas. This gas is not always collected effectively, and can seep into the groundwater, contaminating it. The companies that use this process claim that the process of fracking is not responsible for the contamination, but there is a large amount of controversy as to what it is considering to be fracking. The industry qualifies fracking as the fracturing portion of the process, while most people describe it with the drilling included. Along with this controversy of what defines fracking, comes the question about what needs to be regulated and what can have new laws passed to prevent. The idea of what defines fracking is causing a large amount of questioning and trouble. Communities have had their water contaminated, and the companies that are responsible are claiming that they have done nothing to cause it. Companies have been claiming that the process itself could not be responsible for the contaminations, but agencies are saying otherwise. Although this process is collecting large amounts of gas that can be made into energy, it is coming at a price. The water they use is filled with chemicals and needs to be cleaned after it is used. This water is held in surface containers that are supposed to be leak-sealed, but have been found to leak into the soil around them. To fix these

problems, the EPA and other agencies could be placing new regulations and policies that could prevent these byproducts from escaping into the environment. As a society, we could participate in the protests against fracking, and help educate those who dont know what it is, and help them to understand its risks. So What? This information is important because it shows how processes could harm our environmental factors in harsh ways What if? If this was not displayed, it could have caused this process to damage waters everywhere Says Who? This information was brought up by the affected communities and the organizations trying to prevent its effects What Does This Remind Me of? This reminds me of eutrophication, because they both sound good when seen at first, but cause detrimental effects

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