Commentary On The Documentary 'Gasland' By Fox

For the past twenty to thirty years, hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as fracking, has been the number one source of natural gas, oil, and energy in the United States. The process of fracking is that a well is built above the ground and then a drill digs several thousand feet deep into the ground to extract the oil and natural gas that is trapped inside of rock formations. Fracking is very controversial because of the cost of the process and the environmental “threats” that it poses. From methane emissions to earthquakes, fracking has been accused to be linked with several environmental issues. To prevent any environmental dangers, states place regulations and boundaries that energy companies have to follow in order to build a well and keep it up and running. The EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) also works with states to help regulate these wells. More importantly, fracking in the United States is very important and acts as a bridge to the future. While it may be argued that hydraulic fracturing is not beneficial to the economy and harmful to the environment, fracking in the United States should not be banned because fracking is not only imperative to the growth of jobs and the economy, but it also does not put the surrounding environment in danger.

As the pace of shale gas drilling has accelerated in recent years, so have environmental concerns. Incidents such as a 2007 home explosion in Bainbridge, OH, the 2008 groundwater contamination on Wind River Indian Reservation in Pavilion, WY, and the 2008 chemical poisoning of an emergency room nurse in Durango, CO, have intensified the debate over regulation of fracking.10 As a result, new laws regulating fracking activities have

In recent years, the subject of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking has been a constant subject of interest in the news media. The pros and cons of fracking are passionately debated. However, the public should become educated on the subject of fracking prior to choosing a side of the argument. In the scholarly article, “Super Fracking,” published in 2014, by Donald L. Trucotte, Eldridge M. Moores, and John B. Rundle, a detailed description of fracking is provided, followed by their analysis of current issues surrounding the controversy. According to Trucotte, Moores, and Rundle, fracking saves the consumer money. The wellhead cost to produce natural gas in January of 2000 was two dollars and sixty cents per one thousand cubic feet. At an alarming rate, the cost at the wellhead to produce natural gas had risen to eight dollars per one thousand cubic feet by January of 2006. Comfortingly, the wellhead cost dropped to two dollars and eighty-nine cents by the end of 2012. Impressively, gas production increase and price decrease over the time period are a result of fracking. In their article, Trucotte, Moores, and Rundle describe in great detail that hydraulic fracturing, most commonly referred to as fracking is the process of drilling down into the earth to fracture the layers of rock so that a high-pressure water mixture is directed at the rock to release the oil or natural gas inside. This method of fracking has been used commercially for the last fifty years.

“Fracking” isn’t a word that most people are familiar with unless they are well informed or active in local government or natural gas extraction. “Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves extracting natural gas from shale formations underground” (Collier, Galatas, Harrelson-Stephens, 2008). During the process known as fracking, millions of gallons of water are shot underground into shale formations to help bring the natural gas trapped inside the formations to be released so that it can surface and become available for extraction. This is the technique that is used for traditional fracking methods. Although fracking increases the states natural gas production, it also carries some negative side effects that are affecting the state and its people.

If the practice of fracking continues without the necessary regulation and management to construct the infrastructure required for extraction, transportation and consumerization, the practice has the potential to generate serious problems.

Over the past decade oil and gas producers have increasingly used hydraulic fracturing also known as fracking to extract oil and gas from the earth. Most people believe fracking is a new process but it has been around for over 100 years. Modern day fracking began in the 1990’s when George P Mitchell created a new technique by combining fracking with horizontal drilling. Since then, U.S. oil and gas production has skyrocketed. But the “new” perception of fracking leads people to incorrectly believe that fracking is temporary and that it somehow harms the environment. The truth is fracking is a reasonable energy solution if oversight and safeguards are used. In the last ten years fracking has improved conditions in the U.S. in three

To sum it up, if Congress does not vote to end fracking in New York State we are all subject to this contaminated water. The fracking companies are literally knocking on doors and asking homeowners along with people in the community to lease their property to install these wells and pump these chemicals into the ground so I have a partition layed out in the back so that You can help and join the fight by signing petitions to ensure NYS Congress fights to stop fracking on our turf also To see the validity of this contaminated water, I urge you to check out the movie “Gasland” as well as YouTube videos of running water from kitchen sinks being lit on fire.

Even though I would need to do more research to have a more coherent opinion, I believe that fracking should not be practiced in the United States. My opinion is heavily based on the fact that fracking is still such a new discovery and that safe methods have not been identified. Thus, too many people are at risk for being exposed to contaminated drinking water (Jackson, 2014). The methane contamination of the drinking water is very concerning because it is very flammable, which can be incredibly dangerous to the citizens in the affected area (Hoffman, 2016). Thirdly, the amount of pollutants that are released into the atmosphere is not safe for people to inhale. Both children and adults have been exposed to these pollutants, which have had severely negative effects. Lung disease is just one of the major negative health effects of fracking. Cancer and birth defects in infants are other incredibly disabling diseases that affect people in proximity to these wells (Kiely, 2016). Another issue that I find disturbing about the process of fracking is that the waste water wells are disposing of the chemical waste deep into the Earth’s crust. However, some of this chemical waste is disposed of in landfills, which, in turn, pollutes the groundwater (StateImpact, 2017). Overall, I find the process of fracking

Fracking has become a nation wide debate and one that doesn’t seem to have an end. The state of North Carolina is one of the most involved areas of the fracking process. “North Carolina is sitting on top of large natural gas reserves (WRAL 1).” For this reason, many natural gas companies come to North Carolina for business. This helps the states economy because it produces more income and creates more jobs. The only problem is that the hydraulic fracking process has a reputation of contaminating local drinking water. This causes controversy with the citizens in cities such as Raleigh. Many cities welcome fracking while others try to completely ban it. The worst problem with fracking is that there seems to be no alternatives for it.

Introduction: In the kind of world we live in today, we are in dire need of oil. Our cars need oil, our buses need it, our planes and machines. Oil and gas production are very important in order for the many tasks we do day to day and we have become dependent on it. Fracking is a process that uses high pressure water and other chemicals to gather oil under the ground. Although fracking is a fantastic way to gather oil, there have been several problems that have been occurring. In Texas many jobs and drilling locations are appearing because of the high demand for oil. Fracking is a very good way to gather natural gas however, it is causing a lot of problems for society and the environment in Texas.

The issue of whether we should continue fracking without research has been widely debated around the world. The issue is important because it has fundamental environmental concerns and economic questions about the process of hydraulic fracturing. “Fracking” is the process of penetrating down into the earth before a high-pressure water mixture is absorbed at the rock to release the gas inside. Water, sand, and chemicals are then inserted into the rock with compression which allows the gas to flow out to the head of the well. Fracking fluid, which can be polluted with heavy metals like arsenic, known human carcinogens, has seeped into local waterways and polluted groundwater. People who live near fracking wells have a heightened danger of developing cancer, asthma, and other serious ailments associated with inhaling or ingesting the toxic chemicals involved in the fracking process. Countries approach fracking and researching much differently from each other. The injection of fluid into shale beds at high pressure to extract petroleum resources has been happening across the United States of America at rapid pace. By 2003, a gigantic public relations campaign was launched to lobby Congress to pass what is

The mantra of the gas industry is there has never been a proven instance of well water contamination caused by the fracking process, which so far remains true. Most of the problems documented in "Gasland" including in Dimock resulted from the drilling, not the fracking procedure. But that does not mean fracking fluids pose no threat to our water supplies. They contain some chemicals that are harmful even in very tiny amounts. The fluid that comes back up out of the ground is saturated with salts, is sometimes radioactive and often contains harmful heavy metals like arsenic. Carl Kirby, a geologist at Bucknell who does not appear in the film, says the prospect of fracking fluids migrating up through thousands of feet of rock to contaminate water wells is “unlikely but not impossible.”The history of what’s gone wrong thus far in Pennsylvania suggests accident and human error pose as much risk as the fracking process, an angle Fox does not explore. Several weeks ago, a truck full of fracking brine overturned at an intersection about eight miles from my family home. The spill was contained by local volunteer firemen, county emergency responders and the drilling company, and it did not contaminate the small

Hydraulic fracking in the United States is a current environmental hazard that has to be addressed by the American people and by the federal government. Fracking in America has opened up millions of acres of lands that were once not economically viable to produce oil and gas. While the Bureau of land Management has paved the way for hydraulic fracturing on public lands, there is a need for retaliation. Fracking is a dirty method of extracting gases and oils at the price of numerous environmental, safety, and health hazards. The environment is not a means of income when rather it is the capital for future generations.

Citing the documentary “Gasland”, the article brings to account instances in the past where people who lived close to fracking sites had experienced sickness and foul-smelling water. The documentary had then influenced New York State’s decision to ban fracking. By citing this documentary, the article makes the reader to not fully accept the given conclusion. Without going into great detail, the article mentions a couple of environmental groups questioning of the legitimacy of the study, considering that the study uses data generated by oil and gas companies. This also brings to question the limitations of the data used. The article reads unbiasedly towards both sides of the fracking industry, it recognizes the conclusions of the EPA study but still lets the reader know that there is still a lot that has not been explored in the topic.

With the public’s growing demand for clean energy and the need to replace the current energy sources that we consume on a daily basis use, more and more states are starting to use hydraulic fracturing, at an alarming rate, to excavate these resources from beneath the shale rocks. Many experts, along with the public, believe that hydraulic fracturing has numerous environmental and health to both human and wildlife communities. Also, many believe that hydraulic fracturing possibly have moral and ethical implications that need to be address and fixed. With hydraulic fracturing being a very controversial topic between scientist and the public, fracking will remain very controversial unless changes and regulations are made and enforced to protect humans, wildlife and the planet to ensure none are in danger and we are able to extract the resources we need. What are these implications that have the experts and public in a need of concern and uproar about fracking? Let us start with what kind of implications hydraulic fracking can have on the environment if we are not careful and observant of our planet.