Article: Problem With Fracking is Fossil Fuels, Not the Process

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From Scientific American:
Flaming tap water comes from bad wells, and not the drinking-water kind. Folks who live closest to natural gas wells in Pennsylvania suffer ill health. And the uptick in earthquakes in parts of Colorado and New Mexico is entirely human-induced. All of these problems are associated with fracking, yet none of them have anything to do with either the horizontal drilling or cracking rock with high-pressure water that fall under that rubric. 
Instead, all of these bad outcomes are the simple results of an oil and gas addiction—and the need to get the next fix out of the ground fast—just like subsidence and toxic ash floods result from our addiction to coal. The fossil-fuel addiction is, of course, primarily responsible for climate change as well, but that’s another story. 
As more and more research focuses on fracking, the outcome becomes clearer and clearer. It is bad industry practices—poorly finished wells, leaking compressor stations or overdumping of copious wastewater—that lead to trouble. The solution is to either slow industry down or increase its regulation, especially the staff to oversee such operations.
Read the whole article by clicking here. 

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