Info Graphic shows the BIG FIVE FRACKING THREATS

October 4, 2011 by
Checks And Balances Project

From earthquakes to poisoning drinking water this image spells out all the concerns

An info graphic posted on CleanTechnica outlines the concerns that people around the world are raising about hydraulic fracturing. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking – as it is commonly called, is an industrial process where poisonous chemicals are mixed with water and injected into the ground at high pressures to get to natural gas supplies. As the practice has become more common in Colorado, Wyoming and Pennsylvania it has been met with an outcry of concerns. This latest info graphic outlines the totality of the concerns. Below the Checks and Balances Project breaks down the info graphic and the five major threats fracking presents to both people and the planet.

The economic threat

click image to enlarge

While gas companies frequently tell the public that increasing our gas supplies by “fracking” the ground beneath us will lead to an economic boom, those living in heavily fracked areas often tell a far different story. Dee Hoffmeister of Garfield County, Colorado is one example of the disconnect between the rhetoric of the gas industry and the reality of what is happening on the ground. Hoffmeister saw a major explosion at a fracking well near her home. Since drilling began Hoffmeister says she has suffered from all sorts of ailments. The retiree who moved to Garfield County from the Chicago area had to fight back tears when she spoke with the Checks and Balances Project: The drilling ruined her “dream retirement house,” she says in the video interview.

The threat to families

click image to enlarge

Beyond the threat that fracking has imposed on the personal finances of homeowners from coast to coast, CleanTechnica shows another difficult position fracking has put many families in. After frack-pads are constructed, waste pits are dug or constructed and truck traffic greatly increases in rural communities, families are left with a difficult choice: Try to fight to reclaim their neighborhoods or take cash for the diminished values of their homes. But many homeowners have faced an uphill battle after trying to fight against the fracking industrial complex. Lisa Bracken, another Garfield County resident whose family has suffered from diminishing health affects following the proliferation of frack-wells in her neighborhood, explained the special treatment the gas industry gets, which in turn make s them very hard to fight against. “This industry has had a hundred years of bullying everybody and doing anything that they want to do and getting away with it. They have got exemptions out the wazoo. It defies common sense, from the community’s right to know to the Clean Water Act,” said Bracken in the winter of 2011. Rifle Colorado resident, Leslie Robinson described the entire situation for locals as “economic blackmail.”

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Dr. Conrad Volz, -former University of Pittsburgh Professor who resigned after the school pressured him to be quiet about fracking leaks

By Andrew Schenkel
September 30, 2011
by Checks And Balances Project

For more than a year the gas industry has been at war with those raising concerns about the hydraulic fracturing process. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking as many know it, is a process where large quanties of a water/chemical mixture are injected at high pressures into the ground to get at previously inaccessible gas pockets. For nearly a year the Checks and Balances Project has reported on several individuals whose reputations and careers have been put in jeopardy following studies that reflected poorly on the gas industry. Many of these individuals have gained national attention for their findings.

In the spring of 2011 Volz, a public health expert with the University of Pittsburgh testified before a congressional hearing on hydraulic fracturing in Washington, DC. In that hearing Volz was the lone voice for concern after the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission’s Director led congressional members to believe that water contamination from fracking had never happened in Colorado. During that same hearing Volz presented findings of a two-year study he led at the University of Pittsburgh. That study found that that the huge amount of chemicals from fracking waste water that had been dumped into Pennsylvania’s waterways had caused the deaths of wildlife.
A month later Volz brought that same study of the Marcellus Shale Commission’s hearing in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, where those raising concerns about hydraulic fracturing were treated much differently than those supporting industry.

It was at this hearing that Volz spoke with Checks and Balances Project Director Andrew Schenkel who asked if geologic pressures against fracked wells could cause wells to break down allowing for chemicals to travel into public drinking water supplies. Volz’s answer, which can be seen in the video below, directly contradicted the rhetoric of the gas industry, whose leaders had repeatedly said water contamination from hydraulic fracturing was a complete impossibility.

“They are going to leak because the cement will shrink and when the cement shrinks it pulls away from the geological layer that it is sealed from, and then it serves as a conduit straight up into ground water aquifers,” said Volz.




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