Fracking and the Environment: Natural Gas Drilling, Hydraulic Fracturing and Water Contamination

Important coverage from democracynow.org:



ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN: ... There are geologists who are quite concerned about how far these [fracking] chemicals and these fluids can travel underground. And then there are these numerous correlative instances of contamination across the country. ...

AMY GOODMAN: Tell us about the main areas affected in the country.

ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN: Well, it’s almost everywhere you look where there’s drilling. There’s drilling in thirty-one states. Drilling has been happening in Wyoming and Colorado for many years. Probably the most intensive development in the country, at least in the early stages, was there. And that’s where you’ve begun to see quite a bit of problems with the water. And these are largely due to spills sometimes or waste streams that are leaked out into the soil and get into water supplies. And sometimes it’s completely mysterious. The documentary clip showed a woman whose well exploded the same day or within a few days of this intensive pressure being pumped into the ground nearby, which implies some kind of geological connection. There have been problems with water in New Mexico, in Wyoming, in Louisiana, in New York, in Pennsylvania.

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