Lets start off with what is Hydro-fracking? Hydraulic fracturing is the production of fractures in the rock formation that stimulate the flow of natural gas or oil. Fractures are created by pumping large quantities of fluids at high pressure down a well and into the target rock formation. Hydraulic fracturing fluid commonly consists of water, proppant and chemical additives that open and enlarge fractures within the rock formation. These fractures can extend several hundred feet away from the well. The proppants (sand, ceramic pellets or other small incompressible particles) hold open the newly created fractures. Once the injection process is completed, the internal pressure of the rock formation causes fluid to return to the surface through the well. This fluid is known as both “flowback” and “produced water” and may contain the injected chemicals plus naturally occurring materials such as brines, metals, radionuclides, and hydrocarbons. Where is the produced water put then? It is typically stored on site in tanks or pits before treatment, disposal or recycling. In many cases, it is injected underground for disposal.

So what’s the big deal? Why are so many people against Hydro-fracking? Let’s start with the amount of water used in this procedure. In 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that 70 to 140 billion gallons of water are used to fracture 35,000 wells in the United States each year. This is approximately the annual water consumption of 40 to 80 cities each with a population of 50,000. Fracture treatments in coalbed methane wells use from 50,000 to 350,000 gallons of water per well, while deeper horizontal shale wells can use anywhere from 2 to 10 million gallons of water to fracture a single well. The extraction of so much water for fracking has raised concerns about the ecological impacts to aquatic resources, as well as the dewatering of drinking water aquifers. In addition to large volumes of water, a variety of chemicals are used in hydraulic fracturing fluids. The oil and gas industry and trade groups are quick to point out that chemicals typically make up just 0.5 and 2.0% of the total volume of the fracturing fluid. When millions of gallons of water are being used, however, the amount of chemicals per fracking operation is very large. For example, a four million gallon fracturing operation would use from 80 to 330 tons of chemicals. The Department of Environmental Conservation complied a list of chemicals and additives used during hydraulic fracturing. The table (see to the right) provides examples of various types of hydraulic fracturing additives proposed for use in New York. Chemicals in brackets [ ] have not been proposed for use in the state, but are known to be used in other states. The company Schlumberger Technology Corp recommends that many fracturing fluid chemicals be disposed of at hazardous waste facilities. Yet these same fluids (in diluted form) are allowed to be injected directly into or adjacent to USDWs. Under the Safe Drinking Water Act (USDW), hazardous wastes may not be injected into USDWs. Moreover, even if hazardous wastes are decharacterized (for example, diluted with water so that they are rendered non-hazardous), wastes must still be injected into a formation that is below the USDW. Clearly, some hydraulic fracturing fluids contain chemicals deemed to be “hazardous wastes.” Even if these chemicals are diluted it is unconscionable that EPA is allowing these substances to be injected directly into underground sources of drinking water.

Is it safe for groundwater resources? Two studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Ground Water Protection Council (GWPC)—the national association of state ground water and underground injection agencies whose mission is to promote the protection and conservation of ground water—found that there have been no confirmed incidents of groundwater contamination from hydraulic fracturing. Despite this, much ado has been made regarding the use of hydraulic fracturing fluids and their potential to contaminate groundwater. Fracturing fluids consist predominately of water and sand—98 percent or more in a typical fracturing solution—while the rest is made up of high-viscosity chemical additives designed to maximize the effectiveness of the fracture job. Many of the additives consist of common household compounds, and while you certainly wouldn’t want to go out of your way to drink them, the EPA concluded in a 2004 study that the additives are not considered harmful to human life or the environment in the capacity they are used. So in conclusion recent attempts to portray hydraulic fracturing as a dangerous, unregulated practice are misleading at best. When done within the set parameters of the numerous state and federal regulations that govern safe drilling practices, hydraulic fracturing has the potential to provide the United States with an abundant supply of clean-burning natural gas for years to come. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel with new federal mandates, regulators should defer to states who can tailor and apply regulations to suit their specific circumstances. Ultimately it’s up to you to decide where you stand and how you feel about the amount of water used in Hydrofracking and whether you think it’s necessary we do so.

Hydraulic Fracturing — Is It Safe?

https://www.earthworksaction.org/issues/detail/hydraulic_fracturing_101#.Vsxs5pMrKt8
http://www.epa.gov/hydraulicfracturing/process-hydraulic-fracturing

Hydraulic Fracturing — Is It Safe?

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An article in The Times Magazine has laid bare the unconscionable decades-long efforts of the DuPont company to hide the dangers of an obscure chemical and bamboozle regulators into allowing toxic pollution to continue long after the dangers were known to the company. DuPont deliberately continued to allow this toxic waste to be spilled into water sources. The chemical that DuPont was protecting is known as PFOA, or perfluorooctanoic acid. It is used in the production of Teflon for non-stick frying pans, a huge source of profits for DuPont. When the Toxic Substances Control Act was enacted in 1976, PFOA was one of a multitude of untested chemicals allowed to remain on the market. The act also made it extremely difficult for the Environmental Protection Agency to require safety tests or crack down on chemicals known to be hazardous. Only a handful have been restricted over the past 40 years. They continually covered their tracks to hide this from the public to continue making a huge profit. What they did then was put everyone within a certain distance at risk of this chemical. What’s even worse is to know that even I have a possible chance of having this awful toxin in my body today. Nathan Rich stated in his article, “if you are a sentient being reading this article in 2016, you already have PFOA in your blood. It is in your parents’ blood, your children’s blood, your lover’s blood. How did it get there? Through the air, through your diet, through your use of nonstick cookware, through your umbilical cord. Or you might have drunk tainted water.” The reality of this is sickening that a company could willingly put so many people including their workers at risk without a care. So where does the problem begin? The real problem is that corporations can saturate the environment (and all of our bloodstreams) with any chemical they come up with until we fund a multi-year study proving exactly how it is harmful. Its too late then, the damage is done. The law should be completely opposite. It should be illegal to flood people with chemicals until you’ve first studied that chemical and proven that it is safe. Why are large corporations allowed to do this? Are consumers not valued enough to be well taken care of? DuPont destroyed these farmers livestock, lives, and worse eventually killed them. I’m actually speechless at how this was able to happen and how it went on for so many years the first case surfaces in 1998. Bilott is currently prosecuting Wolf v. DuPont, the second of the personal-injury cases filed by the members of his class. The plaintiff, John M. Wolf of Parkersburg, claims that PFOA in his drinking water caused him to develop ulcerative colitis. That trial begins in March and when it concludes, there will be 3,533 cases left to try. That’s insane, the E.P.A. needs to have a better way to monitor what large corporations are doing and releasing into our environment. Bilott doesn’t regret fighting DuPont for the last 16 years, nor for letting PFOA consume his career. But he is still angry. ‘‘The thought that DuPont could get away with this for this long,’’ Bilott says, his tone landing halfway between wonder and rage, ‘‘that they could keep making a profit off it, then get the agreement of the governmental agencies to slowly phase it out, only to replace it with an alternative with unknown human effects — we told the agencies about this in 2001, and they’ve essentially done nothing. That’s 14 years of this stuff continuing to be used, continuing to be in the drinking water all over the country. DuPont just quietly switches over to the next substance. And in the meantime, they fight everyone who has been injured by it.’’ This is an overall mess and nothing is being down to prevent this from happening again. It’s tragic.

We’ve been spending time with the robotics running different experiments to see how things work. For this experiment we used the VI to understand how straight rotation works to measure the distance the wheels travel, and the speed at which the car travels. We ran the VI and recorded the wheel rotation (in degrees and in number of turns), the time it took for the wheels to turn (in seconds and milliseconds), the distance the car moved and we measured the distance with a ruler and compared our results with that of the VI. We repeated this same procedure 5 times as you can see in the photo of the table. Then we talked about how the degrees that the wheel rotated related to the number of turns of the wheel, how seconds related to milliseconds, how the distance related to the number of turns and what could account for the discrepancies? It was interesting to see the discrepancies as we went along. For the majority of my data the lower the power was the higher the discrepancy became where as the higher the power the lower the discrepancy became. We found the percent difference by (druler-dlabview over druler+dlabveiw) multiplied by 100% to get the discrepancy. These experiments help you understand energy and sustainability issues by getting you to hands on work with something to see energy in use and figure out the math behind it. It was a fun, hands-on way to learn more about energy and sustainability issues.

The Flint, Michigan Water Crisis began in April of 2014 causing lasting effects on the citizens that relied on their city. Over the summer, people in Flint, Michigan, discovered they had been drinking tap water with dangerously high levels of lead, a neurotoxin that can cause miscarriages and damage children’s developing brains. It all started when the city switched its water supply from Detroit’s system to the Flint River. The switch was made as a cost-saving measure for the struggling city. Doesn’t sound to bad does it? So what turned this seemingly positive event into the crisis it is today? Perhaps the lead facts that the city officials hid from unknowing citizens. Soon after the switch residents began complaining about the water color, taste and the odor. Several people began suffering from rashes and expressed concerns about bacteria. The city responded by stating the “Water is safe to drink”, it was until September that the city issued a boil-water advisories after coliform bacteria was detected in tap water. In October the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality blamed cold weather, aging pipes, and a population decline for the water problems. The same month that General Motors in Flint stop using municipal water due to it corroding car parts.

In February the governor states, “It’s clear the nature of the threat was communicated poorly. It’s also clear that folks in Flint are concerned about other aspects of their water — taste, smell and color being among the top complaints”. Ultimately stating that their is no threat to public health even though a test revealed 104 parts per billion of lead detected in drinking water, and a second testing in March detects 397 parts per billion of lead in drinking water. Even after learning how much lead had leaked into the water supply by March it took until October for the governor to urge residents to stop drinking water after government epidemiologists validate Dr. Hanna-Attisha’s finding of high lead levels. Mr. Snyder orders the distribution of filters, the testing of water in schools, and the expansion of water and blood testing. The state government admitted in October that its own actions had contributed to the public health emergency, and several state officials resigned in disgrace at the end of December. On January 5, 2016 Mr. Snyder (Michigan Governor) declares a state of emergency for Genesee County, which includes Flint and on January 16, 2016 President Obama declares a state of emergency in the city and surrounding county, allowing the Federal Emergency Management Agency to provide up to $5 million in aid. President Obama also states, “I would be besides myself if I were a parent in that city”. As you can see the leaders of this town did not handle the information properly and put their whole city at risk.

So in the end who pays for the damages done? Lynna Kaucheck handed a stack of papers to a staffer outside Flint’s mayor’s office. “This is 21,000 petition signatures from people across the country calling on you to issue a moratorium on drinking water bills,” Kaucheck told Flint City Administrator Natasha Henderson as she handed her the petitions. Kaucheck is with the group Food and Water Watch. She says it’s wrong to make people in Flint pay for water they can’t drink. The governor’s plan would provide credit for water bills dating back to April of 2014, when the city’s tap water source was switched to the Flint River. It was the failure to properly treat that river water that damaged the city’s pipes which continue to leach lead into the drinking water. “The city, the state, the local government officials, the governor, all know that this was catastrophically wrong,” Murphy told reporters Tuesday, “And that the citizens should not be made to add insult to injury by having to pay for dangerous, dirty, non-drinkable, non-usable water.” Neither the governor’s plan nor the lawsuit will bring immediate relief to Flint residents who still can’t trust the water coming out of their kitchen faucet and are still getting a water and sewer bill in the mail every month. It’s sad that this is the reality for Flint residents now especially because it easily could of been prevented if officials had followed the necessary steps at the beginning before the switch occurred.

Sources:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/01/21/us/flint-lead-water-timeline.html
http://michiganradio.org/post/flints-water-crisis-who-pays#stream/0
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/flint-lead-water-epa_us_569522a8e4b086bc1cd5373c
http://flintwaterstudy.org/

Hawaii is known for the world-class beaches, with lovely sand, dependable sun, refreshing and famous trade-winds, year-around temperate climate, tepid waters, excellent snorkeling, and beguiling sunsets. Yet Hawaii is focused on protecting the soil and the farms and properties that are not yet contaminated with G.M.O. Genetically Modified Organisms have become a very controversial topic in todays society. For many it is unclear whether there is a health risk related to GMO’s or not. Many people in Hawaii feel that their food should be all natural and not modified to be produced more rapidly. GMO’s are assumed to cause a lot of problems when we eat them. Causing things like food allergies, cancer, and other health issues.

Most of American farms produce GMO products like corn, soy, and a variety of other food. An example of why GMOs were created and used is after an outbreak of Papaya ringspot virus in the mid-’90s, only the Rainbow, endowed with a gene from the virus itself that effectively gave it immunity, had saved the crop, they told him. They then used this knowledge to genetically modify papayas to prevent another virus from breaking out and threatening the crops. For many citizens in Hawaii they value the way the food is grown locally and they support their farmers differently then how we do here. This makes them harder to convince that GMOs are safe and important.

In most of America GMOs are considered more normal they’re in the grocery store and in restaurants we eat them quite often. Some of us probably without a second thought or maybe completely unaware that we even are. They have created laws that you must label products that contain any GMOs because as citizens we do earn the right to know. Just like everything else we buy gets labeled with the ingredients most now have warnings about GMOs or have “Now GMO Free” printed across the front.

In my opinion I believe that GMOs are no worse then the pesticides we currently use on our food. I don’t believe they are cancer filled or even causing allergies I think people hear so many things from the tabloids that they can’t decipher facts from fiction. GMOs are a relatively new thing for us and I do believe we need to be careful and monitor what we use and how it affects us. As far as banning GMO’s goes I am against it because it has the potential to help end starvation by producing larger amounts of crops with less chance of widespread virus outbreaks. I do understand Hawaii’s want to not have GMO’s used on their land because their state varies largely from the rest of America. I think eventually GMOs will become the normal in the years to come due to the way our world is rapidly progressing to become more effectively productive.