Fracking: The Hammer, the Bell and a Giant Pile of Rubble

Hmmm, should we be concerned about 2.5 million hammer strikes to the ground beneath our feet?

The connection between human activity and climate change is well documented. Even skeptics cannot overlook the strange weather patterns that predominate these days and the severe weather events that happen with increasing frequency.

So perhaps I should not be surprised to learn about another human activity that is, quite literally, shaking things up in disconcerting ways. The process in question is called hydraulic fracking.

Fracking is the process of high pressure injection of fracking fluid – water containing sand or other thickening agents – into a well to create cracks in the rock formations through which natural gas and oil will flow more freely. Fracking has a number of harmful health effects. 

Fracturing fluids can contaminate underground aquifers and surface waters
Air emissions, including volatile organic compounds, threaten human health
Constant diesel pollution and noise pollution since fracking continues 24-7
Methane leaks which accelerate climate change.

Now research indicates that fracking of oil and gas wells are causing earthquakes. Experts have determined that fracking makes it easier for faults in underground rock formations to slip which triggers earthquakes. Considering that there have been 2.5 million “frac jobs” around the world since the process began 65 years ago, this is more than a little worrisome.

The phenomenon is a serious concern in Western Canada where oil and gas extraction is a big money industry. The area around Fox Creek, Alberta, which is smack dab in the middle of a large oil and gas field, has experienced hundreds of quakes since 2013 including one that measured 4.2 on the Richter scale.

The battle lines have been drawn. Proponents of fracking defend the practice based on the economic benefits of more accessible fossil fuels. Opponents argue that the economic benefits are outweighed by the environmental impacts including the triggering of earthquakes.

I am troubled to learn that we humans have the ability to cause something as fearsome as an earthquake. We are quite literally pulling the ground out from under our own feet in an effort to feed our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels.

Michael Bell, Chair of the Geophysics Program at the University of Washington, reaches for metaphor to put an earthquake in perspective. “An earthquake is like the hammer hitting the bell and the entire planet then resonates with its natural frequencies for periods of weeks following the giant earthquake.”

If we extend that metaphor, fracking becomes 2.5 million little hammers hitting the bell over and over and over again. A ready source of gas for our cars does will not do us much good when the big one hits and we are buried beneath a pile of rubble.

~ Michael Robert Dyet is the author of “Until the Deep Water Stills – An Internet-enhanced Novel” – double winner in the Reader Views Literary Awards 2009. Visit Michael’s website at www.mdyetmetaphor.com or the novel online companion at www.mdyetmetaphor.com/blog .

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