If your family gets its drinking water from a rural water well, you must be aware of the potential for explosions and contaminated water.
Fracking is not a new method of drilling for natural gas, but its dangers to citizens and our environment are becoming more prevalent. Known by names including hydraulic fracturing and hydrofracking, it is a way to get natural gas out of the earth. An oil well is drilled, and then huge amounts of water plus sand, salt and chemicals are forced in to the well. The tremendous pressure fractures the shale deep underground and opens pathways that enable natural gas to flow out of the well more easily.
There are two types of fracking:
- Vertical fracking extends the life of an existing well after it starts being less productive.
- Horizontal fracking is more extreme because it uses a combination of 596 chemical – hundreds of them know to cause cancer – and millions of gallons of water each time a well is fracked. After fracking, this contaminated water is now unfit for consumption and must be cleaned and disposed of.
Some of the personal injury problems your family might have with fracking are:
- Contaminated drinking water from rural wells – After the drilling company pours thousands of gallons of chemical-filled water into a hole, it’s got to go somewhere. And that is likely the water table where rural homes receive their daily drinking and bathing water. It can be dangerous to drink and harmful to bathe in.
- Long-term injury — cancer-causing chemicals
- You should also be aware that cancer-causing agents (carcinogens) are used in fracking. In fact, fracking products used between 2005 and 2009 contain 13 different known carcinogens. And Oklahoma ranked third on the list (behind Texas and Colorado) of states in which the most gallons of fracking fluids containing a carcinogen were used. That means, cancer-causing chemicals were pumped under our soil and pushed into the earth, where they could easily come into contact with our drinking water supply.
- Also, Oklahoma is number two (ranking after Texas) in states with the highest volume of fracking fluids containing 2-BE (2-Butoxyethanal). 2-BE can cause destruction of red blood cells and damage to the liver, spleen and bone marrow.
- Between 2005 and 2009, the 14 leading U.S. fracking companies used more than 2,500 products containing 750 compounds. More than 650 of these products contained chemicals that are known or possible human carcinogens, regulated under the Safe Drinking Water Act, or listed as hazardous air pollutants.
- To read the fracking report from the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce from April 2011, click here to download the PDF.
- Natural gas coming out of the faucet and causing an explosion – The natural gas that is released due to fracking starts deep in the earth, and is pushed up into the water table. Here it flows upward with the water until it reaches your kitchen sink or bathtub or garden hose. Tragically, an ordinary garden hose can be turned in to a fiery torch. This same dangerous fire happen in your kitchen or well house or anywhere there is a faucet.
If your family or friends live near an area where wells are being contaminated by fracking, and have had some of these problems, give Carr & Carr a call at 866-510-0580 or email us today. Our attorneys are based in Tulsa and Oklahoma City, but we can travel to meet you at a more convenient location.
