Environmental Health



Environmental Health

Introduction

The drilling process, which helps to, obtain both natural gas and oil from the centre of the earth is called, hydraulic fracturing or ”fracking”. By this process, water, sand and other chemicals are pumped under high pressure into the underground which contains natural gas and oil, as a result, the resources pour into the wellbore (Ireland, 2011).

The process of hydraulic fracturing uses underground resources such as coal beds and shale gas to obtain both gas and oil. It consists of, 'fracturing and cracking' of the ground; hence the name fracking originated.

Fracking is being used as old as, 1940s. It is quite essential as it uses modern equipment to draw oil or natural gas in places which lack these resources. Fracking is being used among nine of ten country's gas wells. The process of fracking helps to improve the national economy and the availability of oil and gas, which is an essential resource in the world today. Tisha Conoly Schuller, the president and CEO of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association states that, "hydraulic fracturing is truly the rocket science of what's happening in energy (Brady, 2011)."

Discussion

Negative Impacts

Along with the benefits, hydraulic fracking is also subject to controversy lately. Some scientists are of the opinion that the process of mining oil and gas from the underground areas effects the groundwater. The scientists believe that some of the chemicals which are used during fracking, leach out in the surrounding water and contaminate it. Therefore, the Environmental Protection Agency started research on this issue. Moreover, one of the report from Cornell University also stated that the process of hydraulic fracking poses a danger for the environment, as coal.

In order to deal with the rising controversy regarding fracking, the Texas Senate passed a bill in May 2011 which made it mandatory to ...