A Look Into The Water For Fracking

By Earlene McGee


If you have heard about fracking but have not quite understood what this term means, then you are in the right place. Fracking is the process of drilling and mining in oil and gas industries which uses some highly pressurized liquid substance to stimulate a well. This mixture substance is majorly comprised of water, sand and some chemical proponents that many companies have failed to bring to light. The process and use of water for fracking has led constant uproars from environmental and conservation bodies due to its downside effects.

The pressurized water together with the other substances in the liquid mixture is used to break rocks and create fractures in them. It is by this fractures that the oil and gas being mined flows out of the well freely. When the hydraulic pressure is withdrawn from the well, small proponents of the liquid mixture let say sand keeps the fractures open.

Great controversies have arisen due to the huge amounts of water required for this practice. For a normal well, it requires that you have about 7 million water gallons to frack out your well. In other cases however, some wells are adamant and will need you to use more than this while others require flushing more than once. This means drawing very large amounts of this precious fluid from our cycle.

The utilization of large water amounts on this purpose means that if it is done more frequently an imbalance may be created in our water cycle. The fluid used in this process can hardly be recycled for later use because it is greatly contaminated with acidic chemicals. Although mining companies fail to disclose the chemicals they use for this process, research on their well sites has shown that the use of boric, citric, and acetic acids is evident.

The moving of the commodity to and from the well site means using very many truckloads running through your city. In order to move around 7 billion gallons of this commodity means using about 300 to 600 truckloads to the well. It requires you to transport the waste materials from the site using these tankers.

For a single eighteen wheeler truck, it can weigh about 80000lbs. Now considering that you have over 500 of these truckloads on the same road would mean disaster on that way. The end result is that the city or state will end up having to do the repairs. However, some companies ought to do these themselves.

Some of the liquid mixture that is approximately half of it is returned to the surface. It is then stored locked in steel tanks that help keep it out of reach by animals and humans. The liquid has been observed to result in chemical contamination around the tank surroundings.

The process has been highly faulted for general contamination in many states. No one really knows what happens to the other half that remains underground after half of it is extracted to the ground. A great possibility though is that this fluid integrates into the normal water supply and this toxic substances result in harmful contamination.




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