What is Fracking?

    

     Fracking is the process of drilling under ground for oil and natural gas. It sounds harmless at first so you might be asking yourself., why it is so controversial?  What companies forget to mention is that when they are injecting gallons of water, salt, and sand into rock at high pressures, they are also adding chemicals. These chemicals are often toxic. Between 20 and 40 percent of the toxic chemicals remain stuck in the ground. This can cause drinking water and soil to become contaminated. The  sludge left behind from fracking is left up to the companies for proper disposal. Also the methane from fracking that is left behind, can leak into groundwater which then leaves a huge risk for explosion.
     Our group chose this controversial concept to better understand it. Our focus is to get an idea of what exactly the affects of fracking are. We want to be able to inform others on this topic and the danger of fracking. We are excited to learn more about this topic along with our readers and what we can do to help! There are so many things these days attacking our environment and we want to make people responsible for the effects their actions have on the world. We hope you enjoy!

 Joanna's view on fracking:
          At first what drew me to this topic was that I had no idea what it was. There had been a lot about it in the news referring to new York. So I looked it up and I was shocked at what I found. Due to contamination of chemicals in water, people could set their faucet water in their homes on fire. I could not even comprehend this when I read it. It made me realize how dangerous this process was. It also hit home when I realized how close to Massachusetts this danger is getting. I want to share this with everyone and make them aware of exactly how negative fracking is. I think that a lot of people still are very ignorant on this subject and I hope to better inform more people on this topic.

Marissa's View on Fracking:

         I was first introduced to fracking my senior year in high school. I was in an ecology class and we watched a video on fracking, like Joanna said, people were lighting their faucet water on fire. This water that would normally be used to clean dishes, wash hands, and prepare food. Not only the water in the sinks but water they were feeding to their farm animals and water being used to water the lawn, the grass was dying and the animals were losing all of their hair. As you can see this is very unsafe and extremely harmful to the environment and to the families that were being affected by fracking. Since these families were only seeing the large amounts of money being offered to them, they signed a contract with the companies, and didn't first read up on fracking. They were blind to the effects and harmfulness it could cause to them and their environment. I want to educate the public on what a huge issue this is before they go and make the same mistake themselves.

Jake's view on fracking:

        Fracking isn't something to be taken lightly. As it destroys the earth, it is also destroying the homes of many a person. It's my impression that there are only a select number of people who are even aware of fracking and the dangers that it holds. The fact that every time I type the word, fracking, and a little red line is put under it indicating a spelling error shows just how unaware the general populus really is about this unsafe process. I'm not going to pretend that fracking doesn't yield an incredible amount of positive natural gases, it also pollutes the ever living hell out of the land and uses up an unspeakable amount of water with every go. It simply isn't the best way of going about obtaining sources of energy, and it needs to be nixed entirely.