Water For Fracking And The Disadvantages

By Earlene McGee


If you have heard about fracking but have not quite understood what this term means, then you are in the right place. Fracking is the process of drilling and mining in oil and gas industries which uses some highly pressurized liquid substance to stimulate a well. This mixture substance is majorly comprised of water, sand and some chemical proponents that many companies have failed to bring to light. The process and use of water for fracking has led constant uproars from environmental and conservation bodies due to its downside effects.

The pressurized water together with the other substances in the liquid mixture is used to break rocks and create fractures in them. It is by this fractures that the oil and gas being mined flows out of the well freely. When the hydraulic pressure is withdrawn from the well, small proponents of the liquid mixture let say sand keeps the fractures open.

The amount of water consumed in this process is substantially massive. It takes about 2 to 8 million gallons of water to frack out a single well. However, some wells tend to use much more than this. In some cases too, there are wells that require fracking more than once. This means using huge amounts of fluid gallons that is fresh from our water cycle.

Drawing such massive amounts of this precious fluid from our normal cycle creates danger of an imbalance in the eco system. Worse is the case that this fluid cannot be recycled for later use even if it is returned to the well surface. Studies on the sites of these wells have indicated that the companies have been using dangerous acids like the boric, citric and acetic acids to make the liquid mixture. The companies have however failed to disclose this claiming it a proprietary measures.

The moving of the commodity to and from the well site means using very many truckloads running through your city. In order to move around 7 billion gallons of this commodity means using about 300 to 600 truckloads to the well. It requires you to transport the waste materials from the site using these tankers.

This translates to a total of 1000 tankers for two wells and mind you one tanker could be weighing about 100000lbs. This is a very massive amount of weight being transported on the roads. The result of this is damage to the roads resulting in wear and tear. This definitely calls for need to invest more to re-carpet and resurface the pathways.

Some of the liquid mixture that is approximately half of it is returned to the surface. It is then stored locked in steel tanks that help keep it out of reach by animals and humans. The liquid has been observed to result in chemical contamination around the tank surroundings.

The process has been highly faulted for general contamination in many states. No one really knows what happens to the other half that remains underground after half of it is extracted to the ground. A great possibility though is that this fluid integrates into the normal water supply and this toxic substances result in harmful contamination.




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