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Drawbacks Of Fracking

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One of the immense drawbacks of hydrofracturing is the amount of water used up in the process and the wastewater generated. Many states, such as California, are currently stuck in a serious drought and need all the water they can get. However, fracking takes up enormous amounts of water as "it can take up to 4 million gallons of water to fracture a horizontally drilled shale well" (Ohio Department of Natural Resources), water that could be purified and given to the people in need. After up to 4 million gallons of water are used up in a single fracking process, "California[‘s] oil wells return five gallons of "produced water," often laced with contaminants such as boron, ammonia, and organic compounds, for every barrel of oil" (Environment California).

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