Fracking is wrong road in pursuit of energy

America is waking up to the slowly unfolding disaster of fracking, and not a second too soon. The controversial drilling practice, which has transformed gas drilling, is used to extract natural gas from rock formations by injecting huge amounts of water mixed with toxic and carcinogenic chemicals at such high pressures that it actually cracks apart underground formations.

The problem is that everywhere the gas drilling industry goes, a trail of water contamination, air pollution, health concerns and betrayal of basic American civic and community values follows.

I have spent the past three years investigating fracking for natural gas, and some of that journey can be seen in my Oscar-nominated film “Gasland.” Every day the facts of fracking become clearer. The process is inherently contaminating, and no amount of regulation can make it safe for people living near or downriver from it.

To drill a gas well, you have to drill through the water table. The industry claims that layers of concrete well casing ensure that no toxic chemicals or flammable methane gas can enter the aquifers we depend upon for safe drinking water. However, a rudimentary search of the data will tell you that one in 20 wells suffers an immediate failure of the concrete casing.

This is not an industry that will reform itself based on small regulatory steps. This is not an industry that can police itself or be counted on to protect public health.

This is the wrong road forward for America. We cannot live in the growing gas lands. We should be investing in renewable energy technology that can provide America with energy as cheaply and far more safely than fracking.

DailyWorld