Hydraulic fracturing is a process that many natural gas companies practices today to stimulate oil and gas production. The significant practice of hydraulic fracturing and growing number of complaints regarding water quality led to various investigations against hydraulic fracturing technology. As a result, government agencies started to dig into the activity and set up various restrictions on water drilling.
“Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting into production wells large volumes of water, sand or other proppant, and specialized chemicals under enough pressure to fracture low-permeability geologic formations containing oil and/or natural gas. The sand and other proppant holds the new fractures open to allow the oil or gas to flow freely out of the formation and into a production well. Fracturing fluid and water remaining in the fracture zone can inhibit oil and gas production, and must be pumped back to the surface.”
Hydraulic fracturing is a worldwide practice that many natural gas companies use to generate energy sources. Many people were concern that hydraulic fracturing will cause underground water pollutions; however, there are not enough evidences proving that there is a direct link between hydraulic fracturing and water contamination. When a water well is not constructed and cased properly it might cause contaminated water flows from the land surface into the water well, and degraded water quality in the well. However research suggests, “contamination incidents have been attributed to poor well construction or surface activities, rather than the specific hydraulic fracturing process.” Also, many oil and gas producing States claimed that there is no direction relationship between hydraulic fracturing and groundwater contamination.
Hydraulic fracturing is responsible for providing major share of domestically produced natural gas. However, many government policies and restrictions are making it harder for natural gas companies to use this technology to generate our own energy supplies. Although as the practice of hydraulic fracturing increases, many people are concerned of water contamination; there are no sufficient scientific evidences that suggest hydraulic fracturing is the cause of groundwater contamination.
Source: “Hydraulic Fracturing Overview: Growth Of The Process And Safe Drinking Water Concerns.” Congressional Digest 91.3 (2012): 71-75. Academic Search Complete. Web. 3 Dec. 2012.
