We watched the documentary Gasland while staying at the Zlystra Dairy Farm ( the home of our Professor Tait’s friends) on the evening of June 25. The director of the documentary is Josh Fox; he went on a journey around the United States after he got a letter that a drilling company wanted to buy his small Pennsylvanian farm. The company wanted to have a natural gas well on Mr. Foxes’ current property. That means the company would have to frack in order to drill this well.
What is fracking?
"Hydraulic fracturing or fracking is a means of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural well drilling. Once a well is drilled, millions of gallons of water, sand and proprietary chemicals are injected, under high oressure, into a well. The pressure fractures the shale and props open fissures that enable natural gas to flow freely out of well."- definition from http://gaslandthemovie.com/whats-fracking/
Example of natural gas well using fracking.
The wells are being drilled too close to homes and the dangerous chemicals are being leached in people’s water supply. The water changes color, it may hiss out of the tap or even more shocking catch on fire if you put a flame to it. People who drink the contaminated water can lose hair, begin to get headaches, lose their sense of smell or taste or worse get brain lesions.
All signs point to that we need to find a new way to drill for natural gas.
Besides the damage to humans, fracking also damages the environment. First of all, the process of fracking requires a lot of water. It takes many truck loads to bring materials to a drill site- all those trips take non-renewable energy which release carbon dioxide into air. The wells themselves are dug 11,000 to 18, 000 feet down- all that land is disturbed and like I said the water supply is usually affected.
Do you know of someone who might live close to the drilling?
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