of drilling for and extracting fuel from rock formations involves many steps besides fracking But most people use the term to refer to the entire process Natural gas which is made up of methane and other gases is a valuable natural resource used to generate electricity manufacture chemicals and more In 2007 Vargson agreed to let a local company Chesapeake Energy drill a well for natural gas on her property in Granville Township Pennsylvania The company paid her for the use of her land The land man told us they would come in they WHAT S IN A NAME The word fracking is catchy and easy to remember For that reason activists plaster it across protest signs From the gas industry's point of view though fracking refers only to a relatively short step in the natural gas production process This step involves cracking apart rocks deep underground When opponents arque that fracking contaminates water or threatens people's health the industry often counters that these claims are false But in 2016 former EPA scientist Dominic DiGiulio proved that fracking fluid had contaminated groundwater in Wyoming Other aspects of the process of drilling for gas may be more problematic In addition not all drilling operations use fracking to prepare a well Using the word fracking to refer to the entire process of drilling for extracting and transporting fossil fuels leads to many misunderstandings would drill they would frack they would reclaim clean up the area and leave us within a very short time frame she said Instead her life changed when her water supply became contaminated
NATURAL OR NOT Vargson claimed the contamination happened after Chesapeake Energy performed maintenance at the well on her property in June 2010 Two days later Vargson noticed her faucet was sputtering a lot A representative from the FOSSIL FUELS Fossil fuels including coal petroleum and natural gas come from the remains of ancient animals and plants that lived during the Carboniferous period approximately 286 to 360 million years ago After these animals and plants died they were buried under layers of earth sand and clay Heat and pressure slowly transformed them into fossil fuels Coal looks like a black or brown rock Petroleum also called crude oil is a black gooey substance Factories refine petroleum into many products including gasoline The gas in a car however is very different from natural gas Natural gas which is composed mostly of methane is invisible lighter than air and typically odorless All of these fossil fuels contain energy in the form of carbon and hydrogen Burning coal oil or gas produces power that people use for transportation electricity and more company tested her water and found methane levels far above the danger level To control the problem the company installed a vent pipe at the water well to help release excess gas Methane is not poisonous but it can detonate when exposed to a spark or a flame Other Pennsylvania residents living near gas wells had experienced fires and explosions as a result of methane contaminated drinking water wells
In addition when methane leaks into the air it contributes to climate change Methane in a water well does not necessarily come from gas drilling operations however Northern Pennsylvania where Vargson lives contains a lot of natural gas beneath the ground Even before companies drilled and fracked for gas in the area some people had contaminated water When faced with complaints from people such as Vargson gas companies often claim the contamination is natural This may be true in some cases but improperly drilled natural gas wells can leak Those leaks may contaminate water BELIEVE THAT WE ARE A 2013 study by researchers DOING EVERYTHING WE CAN TO CONSTRUCT OUR WELLS at Duke University tested PROPERLY AND SAFELY AND THAT the water at 141 homes in WE ARE NOT CONTRIBUTING TO THE PROBLEM northeastern Pennsylvania DAVID BERT VICE PRESIDENT OF They found methane in DRILLING CHESAPEAKE ENERGY 82 percent of those water wells The water wells within 0 6 miles 1 km of a natural gas drilling operation contained six times more methane than average The study concluded that drilling Vargson points out the vent that Chesapeake Energy installed on her land to reduce the methane levels in her farm's water 9
