New Fracking Report Shows Water Resources At Ever Greater Risk

Map above highlights the areas most compromised by fracking.

The latest report from Food & Water Watch shows ever greater water resources (see map) at risk from current as well as future fracking zones - many close to water supplies, as well as consuming vast volumes of water.  Those who care about the quality of their water, its accessibility as well as effects of fracking on soil and air need to pay more attention as the frackers are again setting up to go all out. This has especially been since the price of oil has hit $50 a barrel once more, and new natural gas deposits have been found, e.g. in Colorado.

Among the sobering revelations in the latest report:

-Fracking a single well typically consumes at least 3 5o 5 million gallons of water which can never be replaced, especially in arid states like Colorado.

- There are no good disposal options for the massive volumes of toxic and radioactive waste fracking creates.  Conventional treatment plants are not equipped to treat fracked wastewater and injecting it underground is causing earthquakes (as in OK) and putting our drinking water at risk.

- Most dangerous fracking chemicals are kept secret and fossil fuel corporations are averse to disclosing the chemicals which are called "trade secrets".

Nevertheless an inquiry by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in 2010-11, learned that fourteen of the nation's most active hydraulic fracturing companies used 866 million gallons of chemical fracturing products, and more than 650 of the chemicals named in the report were known carcinogens, supposedly regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act. (Which was rendered toothless for fracking by lobbyists) Among the most toxic of the chemicals used (11.4 million gallons in all) were: benzene, toluene, xylene and ethyl benzene.

Nearly all of the above have been linked to: cancer (breast, prostate, liver, colon) as well as neurological problems, respiratory difficulties and even birth defects.

- A recent study issued by the Colorado School of Public Health and Brown University has also linked birth defects to the proximity of fracking near a mother's home. The study found "an association between the density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of the maternal residence and the prevalence of congenital heart defects" as well as "defects of the brain and spinal cord."

Two more disgusting aspects you may not know:

1) Fracking corporations are exempt from critical statutes in all the major environmental laws, including: the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act and laws pertaining to disposal of toxic waste."

2) Fracking corporations are now banking on not only doing their foul deeds in residential neighborhoods but expanding their operations to national parks and densely populated urban areas.

If anyone needs more proof that capitalism is hell bent to destroy whatever is left of this planet as livable abode for humans, there you have it.

See also:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/This_Changes_Everything