Fracking. It's a matter of where it should be used, or, if it should be allowed to be used in certain areas. The industry has fracked for 75 years. Millions of wells have been fracked.
It is more dangerous to water - rivers, streams, lakes, aquifers, for pipelines to break and spill oil, than fracking is. In cases that have to do with acquiring oil. Repairs to existing wells should be beefed up because of the possibility of aquifer contamination from abandoned wells.
In areas where the water could be contaminated by modern fracking, in the process of extracting oil from shale deposits, and gas, stricter regulations and limits should be placed on the processes.
In normal activities, fracking should not be a danger to water supplies. Gas emissions should not be escaping into tributaries or rivers at the rate we are witnessing worldwide. Something is not right in the regulation of the industry by governments. Stricter measures need to be employed to ensure water safety.
But basically, the areas where fracking and drilling is allowed needs to be monitored. Letting companies go where ever they want and frack where ever they want is not the way things should be. As more and more videos surface on the internet, it is obvious that dangerous practices are being employed in areas in many different nations.
Studying fracking helps to gain an overall perspective in what is happening in the world with the energy industry. Industries. http://geosociety.org/criticalissues/hydraulicFracturing/waterQuality.asp
It is true that in the early 1990's there about Midland Texas, a couple of scientists, engineers, fracked a well to find out if they could get oil out of a well by extracting it from shale deposits trapped deep under ground. Initially, their findings was that it would work. The horizontal drilling technique had something to do with it too. The site was probably there about Wolf site #1. Down from there was a smaller rig. I called it little Christmas tree.
There never was a reason to pollute any water. No company needs to drill where it might endanger life. Water. Or wildlife. Whatever chemicals were used in the process, those chemicals are not supposed to pollute water at the level of the water table. In some cases there are other levels that may be subjected but those are typically from the old time vertical well casings that need repair.
Pollution and dangerous chemicals cannot be tolerated. Possibilities of water contamination has to be strictly regulated. Any other considerations are unacceptable, period.
Fracking should not be allowed in sensitive areas. The sites near West Texas are well suited for the extraction process, not endangering the water. But even so, precautions need to be in place and regulations need to be strict to protect the public and the environment.
Money derived from the bountiful fields in west Texas should be set aside by each company and repairs to leaking wells should be a priority.
If I get back down to west Texas, I'll see you there. Merry Christmas!
Don Robbins.
