Let me start this off by saying I’m not a hydrologist. I don’t even play one on TV, so this may be totally wrong, but….
Can someone please explain this to me? The opponents of hydraulic fracturing (fracking) say that they don’t want you to pump something into the ground because they are worried about polluting the aquifer, ground water. Without giving that any real thought that makes sense.
But upon further reflection I have to ask a couple of questions.
First would be, isn’t oil, or even natural gas, considered to be a pollutant to water? Haven’t we been pumping oil out of the ground since Edwin Drake’s first purpose drilled oil well in 1858? Other than the oil that has been spilled when gushers came in, I don’t recall hearing of any water pollution from the drilling itself.
Secondly I must ask, if the oil is and has been down there all along without polluting the aquifer, and for 155 years we have been extracting it without major (or even minor that I’ve heard of) pollution of ground water, why is it a problem now?
And if in the fracking process I am pumping a liquid down to the level where the oil has been for eons, without polluting the water, and I then pump the oil back up past the water, as we have done safely for over 150 years, where is the danger?
My final question is, if Governor John Hickenlooper of Colorado would, could and did drink fracking fluid without any ill effects, what’s the big deal if some of it did, though there is no evidence that it ever would, make its way into the aquifer? Remember, the oil itself has been down there for millions of years without polluting the water.
Or so it would seem to an old farm boy.
