Hydraulic Fracking Effects

In today’s world, the public’s attitude towards environmental awareness has changed, for more people are now aware of the harmful effects being done to earth because of the failure to caring and failure to find alternative solutions that will lessen the damage. One of the issues people are trying to find an alternative solution to is Hydraulic fracturing, which is commonly known as “fracking.” The process of hydraulic fracturing can be viewed as possessing both positive and negative effects on the environment and people. The positive view of hydraulic fracturing includes the idea that it is lessening the reliance on coal. Which has help the United States prosper in meeting demands for natural gas. A negative side to this drilling process is …show more content…
Fracking is a simple process that involves “drilling down deep through to the shale levels and then drilling horizontally to fracture the rock” (Hoffman). This technique has expanded and taken over other techniques previously used. The United States, before the fracking, “were highly dependent on foreign countries to meet the energy needs”, but now thanks to the development of fracking the United States is meet the required demand and then some (Daniels Ethics). Essentially being able to produce the demand and then some, further developed into another problem. Part of which was developed because of the said negative effects that occurred when a company would use the fracking technique to drill for natural gas. People living nearby the drilling site noticed this drilling process was causing health problems and was potentially even more hazardous to those working on the drilling sites. The highest stakeholder in this situation would be the workers, for those company workers or contactors are the ones nearest to the fracking process. These founding’s have led researchers to further investigate the studies and in turn lead to the discoveries of numerous negative side effects caused by the fracking process. Eventually, lead to protesting by several concerned people. With a goal to try and convince …show more content…
The EPA discovered some of the reasons which caused people to stand against and protest this drilling process known as “fracking” by carefully researching and analyzing by the areas and the people residing nearby. In some studies, that were conducted revealed “that the carcinogen benzene was 55 times higher than the recommended safe levels”, contamination of the water supply, as well as pollutants in the air. Some of the pollutants found in the air were said to cause health issues such as silicosis, which is an incurable lung disease. If that was not enough the water supply for nearby towns is said to be polluted by toxic fluids “containing added chemicals, radioactive material, liquid hydrocarbons, and heavy metals” (Hoffman). Fracking has been accused of causing more than one negative side effect to people living nearby and for those working on site. Despite the previous arguments, there are several other reasons consider fracking to comprehend that it is not as bad as its typically