Opinion: What’s The Fracking Problem?

Apparently after this Pennsic, Fracking operations are planned on Cooper’s Lake campground property. They are already occurring in the surrounding area.  What is Fracking you ask? This is what I have found.

Natural gas is trapped underground in a huge deposit called Marcellus Shale, a geologic formation that stretches from Tennessee to New York.  A drilling technique bores horizontally through the bedrock. Millions of gallons of chemically treated water are pumped in under high pressure to break up the shale and release the gas. This is hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Millions of gallons of toxic water are created in the process. Some of that fluid remains underground. Some will comes back out as waste water, bringing with it benzene, brine, radioactivity, and heavy metals. The risks and environmental impacts are sensitive, controversial subjects, while the political/financial pressure to support these operations is firmly established. There have been several thousand wells drilled in Pennsylvania over the past few years for this purpose, apparently with minimal oversight from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

There are reports surfacing online giving reason for concern. One article describes a woman who lives by a fracking operation in Butler County, Pennsylvania—whose pond bubbles with methane and whose kids have nosebleeds at night. Others describe contamination issues close to Pennsic where water for bathing, not to mention drinking, had to be provided in “Water Buffaloes” because of well contamination.

What does this mean for Pennsic? We don't know if the water is affected yet, or if it will be in the future. We don't know if Cooper's will be an environmentally safe location in years to come. We hope so. We do know enough to know we need to pay diligent attention to this and plan accordingly

I’m not telling people what to do. Learn about fracking yourself, read --- a LOT, and decide.

Lady Katherine d’Orleans
Kumpania Painted Wheel