CHAPTER ONE FLAMING TAP WATER sherry sherry Vargson turned on the water in her kitchen She struck a match and then held it by the stream of water Foom A small fireball erupted from the faucet It was 2011 and she had been having problems with her water for a year In the winter her horse's outdoor trough of water did not freeze even when temperatures dropped to 14 degrees Fahrenheit 26°C Vargson believed her water contained high levels of methane an extremely flammable gas Vargson blamed hydraulic fracturing or fracking for the problems This technique injects a mixture of water sand and chemicals into the ground at high pressure in order to release natural gas and other fossil fuels from deep underground rock formations The process Sherry Vargson lights her sink water on fire showing that methane has leaked into her home's well 4
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
