We Have Zero Idea How Many Poisons are in Fracking Water That Ends Up in Our Aquifers
According to a new study, it’s virtually impossible to tell how many
poisonous chemicals contaminate California’s water supply through
fracking, and how much damage it’s causing, reported ThinkProgress.
Because it’s so difficult to determine what chemicals are damaging
the state’s water supply, the California Council on Science and
Technology (CCST) has recommended that agencies ban the reuse of
fracking wastewater. That means not transporting wastewater into
aquifers used for irrigation, drinking water, or returning the water
back to nature.
During the fracking process, chemical-laden water is used to assist
in drilling for oil and natural gas. The process generates millions of
gallons of wastewater that’s contaminated with hundreds of chemicals,
many of which are unknown under the protection of proprietary-use laws.
What to do with the wastewater has become a controversial issue. The
study noted that no California agency “has conducted a systematic study
of the possible impacts” of fracking wastewater.
There has only been one independent water contamination study done in
California, and other similar studies in different American regions
provide mixed results. Because there is little information on what
chemicals are used during fracking or how they may affect the
environment, there isn’t a hard and fast starting point to conduct
studies measuring wastewater contamination. According to the CCST study,
“most groundwater sampling studies do not even measure stimulation
chemicals, partly because their full chemical composition and reaction
products were unknown prior to this study.”
