Since moving to Kentucky , I ’ve been bombarded by messages — pro and convict — about coal minelaying and mountaintop removal . Only recently have I been affront withfrackingin the state I call home . Two years ago , I go to theOhio Ecological Food and Farm Associationconference and attended a seance about fracking , precisely because I knew nothing about the procedure . I came aside from there horrified by what I instruct . I have n’t had the chance to spell about it until now , and this opportunity is courtesy of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announcing hisban on frackingin the land .
A Fracking PrimerFracking — technically calledhydraulic fracturing — is a method of extracting born gas from shale - rock music formation thousands of feet underground . An harebrained amount of water , plus sand and chemicals , is injected at an crazily gamey pressure into a well , fracturing the rock-and-roll layers and allow innate gas to escape .
New York has had a temporary reprieve on fracking since 2008 . Governor Cuomo danced around the issue , hold off for aNew York State Department of Health studyon the encroachment of fracking . In sum-up , the issue of the studywere not good .
Some People Hate FrackingAmong the health department ’s findings are concern about :
The represent state health commissioner , Howard Zucker , really said hewouldn’t need his family dwell near a fracking web site , and he does n’t want other kinsfolk living near one , either .
Before last week ’s authoritative fracking moratorium , anti - fracking groups list mess of reasons to dislike the procedure . The issues refer in the report have been report by communities all along but have n’t been put to actual exam . If you ’ve seen the filmGasland , you ’re familiar with the methane in the wiretap H2O that allows the pee to be light on fire — fun party conjuring trick , but not so fun to drink .
There are concerns of what will happen over time to fracking infrastructure — the pipes buried deeply in the Earth that can corrode and leak — and the concerns about infrastructure that ’s ill instal chiliad of foot hole-and-corner . Chemical leaks would be withering to surface , earth and well water .
The mass of piddle that ’s used to inject one well—2 to 4 million gallons — is direful , deliberate clean drunkenness water is not an abundant resourcefulness in many part of the world and is becoming less so in some parts of this country . after , that water is dangerous — not capable to be used for imbibition or washup — and all of thiswastewaterhas to be treated or stored somewhere , but is often leak into the environment .
There ’s the issue of the economic boom and binge in fracking community , much like what we ’re seeing in West Virginia and Kentucky , which were once coal - rich . And thechanging landscape of communitiesafter fracking moves in important .
Some People Hate The BanRather than look at community of interests , health and environmental headache , some people front at the free energy and economic benefits of fracking . There is big money in natural - accelerator pedal extraction , both for the companionship doing the extraction and for the landowners — lot of them James Leonard Farmer — who allow their land to be used to build rude - gas fracking fountainhead . Job are created , though potentially fewer pendent on fracking than are touted .
Using the U.S. ’s course occurring energy sources can reduce our reliance on other land for our vigor motivation . rude gas can also provide a lower - price energy resourcefulness for the U.S.
Some critics of New York ’s fracking ban say the health department reportuses defective scienceand that the health issues are unfounded .
