Fracking - Is It Worth Risking Our Water Supply?

Water is our most precious resource. Without it, we would cease to exist. Out of all the water on earth, only 2.5% is fresh water and less than 1% is available for your human consumption (since much of it is in glacier form).

With the worlds population hitting almost 7 billion in 2011 and our bodies themselves containing 70% water, it would seem that the most critical of all environmental concerns should be to ensure the safety and protection of our most critical and life sustaining resource, WATER.

Water is so priceless and unique that its topic has been studied by Japanese scientist Dr. Masaru Emoto who has been researching this new field of science by freezing samples of water that have been exposed to either positive or negative words, emotions and music. Through photographs, Dr. Emoto has found that water exposed to positive influences produces beautiful, perfectly formed crystals, while water exposed to negativity produces ugly, malformed crystals. Dr. Emoto's study suggested that because humans are primarily composed of water and much of the earths surface is covered in water, the power to change the essence of water means that humans have the power to evoke change on a global or personal scale, by way of water. If these controversial studies are accurate, than is it possible that water is (in some fashion at least), alive?

What if we no longer had access to fresh drinking water, what would we do? If this was the case, we would have to use advanced filtering methods to convert salt water into drinking water, but many argue that it would not be the same. If we consider fresh water to be in some way "alive" would the converse be true by saying that filtrated salt water would be considered "dead"? If so, what affect would drinking "dead" water have on our bodies? Would filtrated salt water lose the waters valuable nutrients?

There are an exhaustive variety of factors and contaminants that threaten our water supplies and "fracking" is one of them! Since 1947, when the process of "fracking", "hydraulic fracturing" or "hydrofracking was first introduced commercially, (to stimulate gas and oil wells) by companies like Halliburton, it has been used extensively worldwide ever since. The process of fracking sped up the extraction process making both oil and gas more readily accessible and profitable.

There is a wealth of natural gas trapped underground, but what depths are we willing to go to extract it?

Fracking is a process by which sand, water and chemicals are injected into dense rock layers and shale creating cracks that allow natural gas trapped inside to flow to the earths surface. There are a number of environmental and human health concerns associated with "fracking"such as: contamination of ground water, risks to air quality, the risk of gases and hydraulic fracturing chemicals reaching the surface, and the potential for the mishandling of waiste.

A number of chemicals identified in fracturing fluid are hazardous chemicals (such as ethylene glycol and toluene which are toxic to humans) that may cause health risks that range from rashes to cancer. Some people living near fracking sites have reported abnormalities in their water (such as dark colored grease, sediment and floating debris) as well as attempting to link their health concerns to tap water that has been contaminated from the fracking process.

Although natural gas is known as being a clean burning fuel and according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) generates only about half as much greenhouse gas as coal, Cornel University Ecology and Environmental Biology Professor, Robert Howarth argues that methane which is 20 times more effective at trapping heat than carbon dioxide,can leak out during the fracturing process, making natural gas leave more of a greenhouse gas footprint on the earth than the traditional offender, coal.

Whether you are a proponent for or against fracking, the use of natural gas over coal or believe that fracking can be hazardous to human and animal health, is really irrelevant. What is important is how far are we willing to go to extract the natural gas or oil for human use? Is it worth risking contaminating our water supply?

Written by Suzanne Edwards "Making the wold greener one reader at a time"

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