Fracked Either Way

On Monday in class we watched "Gasland" which is a documentary by Josh Fox about the negative effects of fracking. Fracking is a big deal around this part of New York, because we fall near the gas shales. Our assignment for this blog was to fact check two points from this documentary. I'm not going to talk about whether or not it's good for the environment - it's not, and I'm not going to talk about whether or not it's really affecting people's lives, homes, animals, and health - it is. I hate digging through the muck trying to find out how large corporations can see the bubbling water or the faucets that literally catch on fire and then say that fracking isn't having any effect on the drinking water. I just kind of wonder what all the nondisclosure agreements were about if nothing happened.




#1 Halli-Who?

This was not the first I've heard of the Halliburton Loophole, but it was the first time I paid attention to what it was. Before yesterday my general understanding of the Halliburton Loophole was that it was some conspiracy theory - it sounds so outrageous that I thought there must be more to it. I thought maybe there were other regulations it had to follow or something, because it just doens't make sense. If fracking is unable to meet the standards of the Safe Drinking Water Act/ Clean Water Act, maybe, and I'm going out on a limb here, but maybe it's not a good idea.  It's a real thing, a real law set in place to excuse fracking companies from having to abide by the Safe Drinking Water Act/Clean Water Act, which means that it is causing harm to the environment as defined by the law that Congress voted in. Instead of changing the fracking system to meet the standards of the law, they changed the law to meet the needs of the fracking system, at the expense of the people. My understanding is that the Halliburton loophole is still in effect, but that the EPA is striving to change the situation. The law stated that as long as diesel fuel was not used in the process, the EPA had no responsibility in the matter, and many fuel companies agreed to discontinue the use of diesel fuel in their fracking. However, many companies did not hold up their end of the bargain, so the EPA sent a guidance document to the White House in December 2011 which will hopefully regulate the use of diesel fuel in fracking and finally set real limitations for the industry and hopefully put us a step in the right direction. That was in 2011, the newest information I was able to find on EPA involvement had to do with the revision of the Fracking Impact Results in 2013.

#2 Produced Water
When I first heard the term "produced water" my first thought was what even is that? It's an extremely vague name for an extremely dangerous thing. Produced water, or wastewater, is the 20-30% of water that comes back from fracking, littered with oodles of toxic chemicals. So what do they do with this water? Sometimes they send it to treatment or sewage plants that are not equipped to deal with it, sometimes they discreetly place it into larger bodies of water such as rivers or lakes, sometimes they place it into open pits where it presents a major threat to people in wildlife in the area. There's also an extremely high rate of radiation in this water that many plants are not able to get rid of to meet safety standards, but that water is still released into water sources. For more horrifying information on produced water check out the Catskill Mountainkeeper's programs and information on fracking.

Here's where it gets tricky. What about this? What about the jobs that fracking offers to thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people? What about the truck drivers and the drillers and the riggers and the traffic directors and all of the people involved in the process, and what about their families? As someone who wants to work closely to the welfare system it's hard for me to nonchalantly say that I think they should completely shut down a project that provides so many jobs, but I'd like to hold the optimistic view that a lot of jobs would be created in the clean up process. The choice seems to be between two evils, but the way I look at it is, poverty and and unemployment won't matter much on a planet that has no water.

Fortunately, Massachusetts doesn't seem to be a main target for fracking right now. I haven't seen a shale in Massachusetts on any map I've looked at, but that doesn't mean that we won't be affected. The water in this country is really connected, with many small rivers and streams branching off into other bodies of water. Fracking isn't just a problem for people who's faucets are flammable, you don't want those kind of chemicals in your water, and you can't be sure you're water couldn't be contaminated. If you want to check out more information on fracking in your area, check out a fractracker, like this one.