Earthscope Media: Fracking Pumps 40,000 Gallons of Chemicals into the Earth

By, Cate Guempel

California uses around 38 million gallons of water a year, according to the 2010 U.S. Geological Survey. So where is California finding this water in such a severe drought? With the large amount of water that we take why are we supporting the fracking industry that polluted our limited water and is not even sustainable. With the short economic booms people associate with fracking, there is always a drastic drop in jobs and the economy when all of the fracking sites have been used up. From the few temporary benefits, it will never be worth the pollution to our aquifers that can't be taken back.

Snowpacks, aquifers, lakes, and rivers are how California and most of the country has access to water. Southern California receives 95% of their water from the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which, overall, provides the state with a third of its water; the Colorado River is another large water source for California.

Fracking has become a huge industry in California since the 1990’s. It consists of using a high pressure water mixer to drill into the earth and release natural gas. During the process, sand and chemicals are injected with the water; this results in pollution of surrounding geography. The chemicals remain in the earth, killing plants, animals, and contaminating water sources. A standard fracking well produces the equivalent of 3 to 10 Olympic-sized swimming pools of contaminated wastewater, which is pumped into deep wells for disposal. It was found that around 40,000 gallons of chemicals are used per fracturing; over 600 chemicals, including lead, uranium, mercury, and hydrochloric acid, are sent and left in the ground. Per gas well, fracking companies use up to 8 million gallons of water. With the 500,000 current gas well in the U.S. and understanding that a single well can be fracked 18 times, it would take 72 trillion gallons of water to harvest or 160 billion gallons using only California’s wells. Fracking has also been found to be the source of many minor earthquakes near fracking wells.

With California in its 5th year of severe drought, it can seem surprising that such damaging industries are only growing. This could be because of the economic benefits reaped from this process. The fracking industry has saved the U.S. $103 billion a year in purchasing natural gas and has created thousands of jobs. Fracking companies have assured the public that the process is safe and beneficial but will not release the specific chemicals they are releasing into the environment on legal grounds of it being a patented trade secret. But when methane concentrations are 17 times higher in water wells near fracking sites then compared to normal wells, it seems fracking is far from safe.

Fracking is continuing to cause great damage to the Earth and California in its drought. Many countries have begun to ban fracking, including Germany, Northern Ireland, France and Bulgaria. Even though fracking has brought benefits, such as economic growth and extra jobs, in the long term future, it harms more than helps. There is enough research and factual evidence to suggest many severe side effects caused by fracking; this leaves a fracking ban in the U.S. as a very plausible and necessary solution. More research into what chemicals are being pumped into the ground, the earthquakes surrounding fracking sites, and how the overall process affects nearby ecosystems before fracking should be allowed to continue.

Less than 3% of the world’s water is freshwater. Desalinization is proven to be inefficient, harmful, and expensive leaving the world with a limited amount of water to sustainably use. The Sierra Nevadas provide most of California’s water but they are not being protected. Too much water is being taken before it is naturally replenished. Drying up one of our main water sources is an inevitable disaster. Large rivers have been showing decreasing water levels but the state’s thirst for water has remained. Even with less and less water available, water is still being taken in innappropriate amounts.

Our water is precious and vital to human life. From the 3% of freshwater on Earth, only 1% is available and accessible to humans. Lake Shasta has dropped almost 30% capacity from 2011; lakes, rivers and aquifers are only diminishing and humans are the cause. Global warming, another human caused issue, has contributed to the decreased water levels, but water sources are being polluted, destroyed, and depleted by humans everyday. The Ogallala was one of the largest aquifers in the United States, but from human influences, it has fallen drastically in depth. Aquifers gather their water from rain and runoff water seeping through porous rock layers underground. This process allows the aquifer to naturally replenish itself, but if is not sustainably sourced, and completely depleted, it is estimated to take 6,000 years to fully replenish to its natural state. Some specialists even calculate the Ogallala complete depletion by 2028. This aquifer supplies water to 82% of people in the High Plains and would drastically impact life. This aquifer is one of many decreasing water sources in the U.S. and California.

California’s record breaking drought is a sign of a much deeper issue: improper water management. Residents are being restricted to some sorts due to the drought, but there seems to be a bigger elephant in the room that's begging to be addressed. Agriculture accounts for 70% of the world’s fresh water usage and California’s agriculture industry uses 80% of the state's water but how are farmers actually being restricted? A common farming technique involves spraying water into the air and letting gravity water the crops. Using this technique, a huge majority of the water ends up evaporating into the atmosphere and being wasted. Watering more efficiently, with micro- or drip irrigation, for example, instead of flood irrigation, could reduce agricultural use by 15 or 20% but needs to be promoted and enforced by the government.