Don't Frack with Our Water!

A message from CREDO Action:

Did you know that oil and gas companies are allowed to inject unchecked quantities of a secret, toxic fluid, directly into our drinking water — and that the EPA is currently powerless to do anything about it?

High Pressure Hydraulic Fracturing (or Fracking) is a method of drilling for natural gas by pumping a mixture of water and toxic, cancer-causing chemicals deep underground, and it's already responsible for poisoning the groundwater in states across the country.

Fracking wells are spreading at an alarming rate. But even more alarming, thanks to the work of Dick Cheney and his infamous energy policy, Frackers don't have to disclose the chemicals used in their fluid, and the process is totally exempt from regulation under the Safe Drinking Water Act.

The FRAC Act, a bill that has been in the Senate since 2009, would correct both these problems. As public concern over Fracking has grown, the bill has gained some momentum, but we still need more Senators actively working to pass it. Will you urge Idaho Senators Crapo and Risch to support the bill?

Tell Sens. Crapo and Risch: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous Fracking. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

If you've ever seen the picture of the man lighting his tap water on fire from the recent documentary Gasland, that was because of nearby Fracking.¹

Fracking a single gas well uses hundreds of thousands, or even millions of gallons of water, combined with hundreds of tons of chemicals including known toxics and carcinogens. While the exact contents of the fluid is still a secret, scientific examination reveals that it often contains diesel fuel, which includes benzene, as well as methanol, formaldehyde and hydrochloric acid and many others.²

The fluid is injected thousands of feet underground at extremely high pressure, literally cracking the earth to release trapped gas. Unfortunately, our water table is down there, too.

Yet somehow, the EPA has been handcuffed from regulating Fracking to keep our water clean since 2005, in what has become known as "the Halliburton loophole." Halliburton, where Dick Cheney was CEO before becoming Vice President, patented Fracking in the 1940's and remains the third largest producer of Fracking fluids. And in trademark Bush administration style, Halliburton staff were actively involved in a 2004 EPA report on Fracking safety.

The "Halliburton loophole" remains a dangerous legacy of the Bush Administration and if we're going to protect our water, we need to close it.

Tell Sens. Crapo and Risch: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous Fracking. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Fracking is currently underway in 36 states. The ramifications to our water from expanded, unchecked Fracking will be extreme and are only beginning to be fully realized by the public — thanks in no small part to the continued resistance of industry to disclose the poisons it involves.

An important investigative series by the New York Times recently concluded that "the dangers to the environment and health are greater than previously understood."³

In addition to toxic, carcinogenic fluids which remain underground after a well is Fracked, Fracking also produces substantial quantities of waste water which is literally radioactive. Acording to the Times, the water is "sometimes hauled to sewage plants not designed to treat it and then discharged into rivers that supply drinking water, contains radioactivity at levels higher than previously known, and far higher than the level that federal regulators say is safe for these treatment plants to handle."

What's more, above ground spills of toxic Fracking fluids are becoming increasingly common. A large spill this April in Pennsylvania dumped thousands of gallons into fields and streams, eerily, on the one year anniversary of the Deep Water Horizon oil spill.

The oil and gas industry is the only industry in America that is allowed by EPA to inject known hazardous materials — unchecked — directly into or adjacent to underground drinking water supplies. That needs to change, and to change it, we need to work to pass the FRAC Act.

Tell Sens. Crapo and Risch: Co-sponsor the FRAC Act to protect our water from dangerous Fracking. Click here to automatically sign the petition.

Thanks for fighting the unchecked oil and gas influence threatening our water.

Elijah Zarlin, Campaign Manager CREDO Action from Working Assets

1. Burning Tap Water and More: GASLAND Exposes the Natural Gas Industry," Treehugger, June 25, 2010.
2. Hydraulic Fracturing 101," EARTHWORKS.
3. Regulation Lax as Gas Wells' Tainted Water Hits Rivers," New York Times, February 26, 2011