Fracking

Fracking is short for hydraulic fracturing, a process through which a solution of water, sand, and other components is injected into an oil well to rupture the bedrock surrounding the well. To frack, a company drills a section of shale vertically and horizontally. Then they detonate a charge inside the rock, and send fracking fluid into the fractures in the shale to prop them open and fracture them more. Once the well is open, some of the wastewater flows back to the surface. Then the oil and natural gas is pulled from the earth and used. This process lets more oil and natural gas come through oil wells, even wells that have already run mostly dry.

Fracking is a controversial practice, and for good reason. Specifically, fracking causes water availability issues, chemical spills at the surface, water quality degradation on the surface and in the ground, and minor earthquakes. Shale-gas operations can use anywhere from 390,000 to 6.27 million gallons of water per well, and shale-oil operations use 70,000 to 2 million gallons of water per well. Obviously, this can be a huge problem, especially in drier climates. Chemical spills abound, such as the 2019 spill on Navajo Nation land that sent 1,400 barrels of toxic fracking fluid washing into a sacred cultural and historical site. Minor earthquakes are created in two ways: when the fracking site is opened near a natural faultline, and when the wastewater is injected deep underground. They are not necessarily small, either--an earthquake in Oklahoma was a 5.7 magnitude quake.

Water quality degradation is a massive problem around fracking sites. Fracking fluid often remains underground, and if a fracture opens into an aquifer, the fluid (containing things like volatile compounds and carcinogens) can leak into the groundwater. Shallow aquifers have the most trouble with this, having been shown to be polluted by methane. Flowback, the toxic wastewater that comes back up during the fracking process, contains contaminants and must be collected, then treated or discharged, or reinjected into a deep disposal well, possibly contaminating deep aquifers. The wastewater is a major concern for the wildlife around any fracking operations and for any humans living around fracking operations. Not to mention contamination of watersheds, which means that drinking water for cities far away from fracking sites can be affected as well.

Any type of oil or natural gas drilling also reduces air quality, increases noise and light pollution, and disruption of natural habitats. Though much of the air pollution produced by fracking is invisible to the naked eye, there have been many instances where the massive pollution has been recorded using infrared cameras. The gases leaked contain volatile organic compounds, including benzene which is a known carcinogen. Populations living near drilling sites lose sleep and peace of mind as the machines run and massive trucks move to and from the site. Flares and lighting run 24/7, creating massive light pollution at night. Drilling for oil is not good for natural habitats, or the people who live around them.

The Permian Basin in West Texas has seen a massive boom in oil drilling recently. There is more infrastructure, more drilling, more pollution. The new infrastructure being built will stall efforts to switch to more environmentally friendly methods of producing power because it’s so expensive to install. However, once the infrastructure is there, it is incredibly cheap to continue using. Allowing more and more of this infrastructure to be built is the same as oil and gas companies promising that they will fight to continue using them, even though the environmental destruction and unsustainability of fossil fuels is becoming more and more clear.

An example of newer infrastructure being built due to the boom is the Trans-Pecos pipeline. This natural gas pipeline was completed by stealing land through private companies’ usage of eminent domain, and the design of the pipeline was broken into smaller pieces to avoid having to do any studies on the effects of the ecosystems they disturbed and destroyed. The pipeline spilled 7,500 tons of methane into the atmosphere during a leak in 2018. The Trans-Pecos pipeline has been mostly empty since it was completed.

While the Trans-Pecos pipeline remains mostly empty, other companies burn the natural gas they force out of the ground. This practice is called flaring. In West Texas, companies have been barred from flaring for more than 6 months consecutively. Yet there are flares that have been burning for years--the government continues to grant extensions despite the practice’s inherent wastefulness and pollution. Flaring can be dangerous to human health, as well, and it has been shown to increase a pregnant woman’s chance of preterm birth by fifty percent compared to no exposure. It also can result in nasty symptoms such as nausea and dizziness.

Though pollution in the air and water is worsening--and worsening the locals’ health--the government does not track the problem accurately. They also allow companies to not pay the fines they owe for their pollution, instead claiming that spills and leaks were ‘unforeseeable.’ No one is taking responsibility for the damage to the earth or for the damage to the people.