Hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking” is the process by which natural gas is removed from the earth by the use of pressurized, chemically treated water to brake apart the rock that contains natural gas under the earth’s surface.
Environmental concerns include the potential contamination of ground water, risks to air quality, and the health risks associated with these concerns, such as cancer. There are many documented cases of suspected contamination of groundwater, and in December of 2011 the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency issued a draft report indicating that the groundwater in a Wyoming aquifer contained gasoline, diesel fuel, BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene), naphthalenes, isopropanol, and synthetic chemicals.1
And a recent Cornell University study confirmed that significant amounts of methane are escaping into the atmosphere during natural gas fracking. Natural gas is mostly methane, which is a much more potent greenhouse gas, especially in the short term, with 105 times more warming impact, pound for pound, than carbon dioxide (CO2). The study estimates that as much as 8 percent of the methane in shale gas leaks into the air during the lifetime