Methane is a principal component of natural gas and is a significant greenhouse gas. Although methane breaks down more quickly in the atmosphere as compared to carbon dioxide, it is still potent. There is an ongoing debate on whether increased fracking activity has an impact on global climate change. Therefore, controlling methane gas release into the air or into groundwater are challenges that have been addressed, and are continuing to be addressed. Natural gas, however, releases two to three times less carbon into the atmosphere than coal, as well as burns cleaner than coal.

Fracking also requires tremendous amounts of water, which is a concern due to the fact that there are severe droughts in other parts of the United States. This is a concern because the water being used for fracking could be used to help those places that are being affected by such droughts instead. The injection fluid also contains toxic chemicals, one being a carcinogen- benzene. Wells can also fail structurally, causing contaminants or methane to leak into water supplies. One critical issue related to fracking is the management of flowback fluids, specifically the storage, treatment, or disposal of these fluids. Flowback fluids are the fracking fluids that can flow back and seep into the ground or other places. They contain volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene – all of which pose significant dangers to human health and welfare. If the fluid is not disposed of properly, it has potential to pollute drinking water wells, streams, rivers, and aquifers. Increases in seismic activity have also been recorded and attributed to the deep-injection of fluid.

Drilling from the Marcellus Shale has the potential to result in adverse effects on water quality. Ground-surface disruptions associated with well drilling, such as site clearing, construction of access roads, and other construction processes, can produce further impacts associated with erosion. These impacts may lead to higher levels of water turbidity, conductivity, and salinity, which may make it more difficult for the species that live in these waters. Furthermore, drill pathways create new paths for migration of natural contaminants to reach aquifers. Contaminants associated with Marcellus drilling include toxic heavy metals and elements, organic compounds, radionuclides, acid producing sulfide minerals, and more. Radionuclides are atoms with excessive nuclear energy, and are therefore unstable. The problem with these nuclides are that they can emit gamma radiation and can undergo radioactive decay. The acid producing sulfide minerals can also be dangerous, as a change in acidity of water can drastically change the species populations.

A storage facility has been proposed to be built in Watkins Glen, New York. However, Watkins Glen is around 50 miles from many of the well sites in northern Pennsylvania, which is where the production would be coming from. Specifically, this storage site would have infrastructure impacts in New York. Local residents and businesses are concerned that the storage facility poses environmental risks, such as the possibility of explosions, the risks from leaks of the facility, and the direct effects on local water quality. Leakage or overflow of the brine pond could affect water quality in Seneca Lake, which provides drinking water to thousands of New York residents.

A number of environmental protections have been enacted to ensure that the environmental impacts of fracking are addressed properly. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates waste water from oil and gas wells under the Clean Water Act when they are discharged into publicly owned treatment works and surface waters. The Clean Air Act addresses public health concerns from air emissions, providing provisions for new performance standards and national emission standards for hazardous air pollutants, as well as mandatory reporting of greenhouse gases as they apply to energy extraction.

For more information on the Clean Water Act, please visit A Brief History of the Safe Drinking Water Act and the EPA

Click below for a study by EPA on fracking’s impact on drinking water:
EPA’s Study of Hydraulic Fracking

Literature Cited

Finkel M. (2015). The Human and Environmental Impact of Fracking: How fracturing shale for gas affects us and our world. Praeger.