www.chej.org | Issue #25 | January 4, 2010

From the CHEN-Democracy in Action Newsletter

Blocked image Imagine finding chemicals in your drinking water or having your water well explode or catch on fire due to methane pollution?   These frightening scenarios are becoming a reality for families living near natural gas drilling sites in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wyoming and other states across the country.  Called "hydrofracking," the drilling technique uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and toxic chemicals to fracture gas-bearing rocks deep underground.  It creates large amounts of tainted water with few options for treatment, and residual contaminants could travel to nearby wells. 
 
Residents, environmental groups, municipalities such as New York City, and a union representing state agency environmental engineers, have come out in opposition to this high risk practice, termed a "giant science experiment." In response, Congress recently passed a law requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to study whether the hydrofracking process has contaminated water supplies and degraded land around drilling sites.  Already ProPublica's investigative articles uncovered that as much as 85% of the fluids used are left underground when wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, a massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.  In addition, wastewater samples in New York, brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling, had levels of radioactive radium-226 as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment. 

www.chej.org | Issue #25 | January 4, 2010

From the CHEN-Democracy in Action Newsletter

Blocked image Imagine finding chemicals in your drinking water or having your water well explode or catch on fire due to methane pollution?   These frightening scenarios are becoming a reality for families living near natural gas drilling sites in Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Wyoming and other states across the country.  Called "hydrofracking," the drilling technique uses a high-pressure mix of water, sand and toxic chemicals to fracture gas-bearing rocks deep underground.  It creates large amounts of tainted water with few options for treatment, and residual contaminants could travel to nearby wells. 
 
Residents, environmental groups, municipalities such as New York City, and a union representing state agency environmental engineers, have come out in opposition to this high risk practice, termed a "giant science experiment." In response, Congress recently passed a law requiring the Environmental Protection Agency to study whether the hydrofracking process has contaminated water supplies and degraded land around drilling sites.  Already ProPublica's investigative articles uncovered that as much as 85% of the fluids used are left underground when wells are drilled in the Marcellus Shale, a massive gas deposit that stretches from New York to Tennessee.  In addition, wastewater samples in New York, brought thousands of feet to the surface from drilling, had levels of radioactive radium-226 as high as 267 times the limit safe for discharge into the environment.