Fracking check list

I recommend going to the link and reading the full article. It's UK written so it actually includes science and words longer than 6 letters, which is all the US media knows how to use.

<snip>
..Chris Mooney succinctly explains the processes involved in fracking shale reservoirs; basically huge volumes of water laced with a cocktail of hazardous chemicals and sand being blasted into shales at high pressure to fracture the rock hydraulically and create pathways for natural gas to leak to the wells. One risk is that this water has to be recovered and stored in surface ponds for re-use. About 75% returns to the surface and also carries whatever has been dissolved from the shales, which can be extremely hazardous. By definition a shale containing hydrocarbons creates strongly reducing conditions, which in turn can induce several elements to enter solution as well as easily dissolved salts; for instance divalent iron (Fe2+) is highly soluble, whereas more oxidised Fe3+ is not, so waters having passed through gas-rich shales will be iron-rich. But that is by no means the worst possibility; one of the most common iron minerals in sedimentary rocks is goethite (FeOOH), which adsorbs many otherwise soluble elements and compounds. In reducing conditions goethite can break down to release its adsorbed elements, among which is commonly arsenic. The blazing faucet hazard results from hydrocarbon gases leaking through imperfectly sealed well casings to enter shallow groundwater, where the gases can also create reducing conditions and release toxic elements and compounds into otherwise pure groundwater by dissolution of ubiquitous goethite, as in the infamous arsenic crisis of Bangladesh and adjoining West Bengal in India where natural reducing conditions do the damage.

http://earth-pages.co.uk/2011/11/04/fracking-check-list/

...to read later.

Yet they tell us that fracking is just clever modern engineering that makes life good and gives us pretty things...

touting their "clean" energy source.