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Did you know...
While hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has been in the news in recent years, the technology actually was first proposed in the 1940s.
The first viable well in the Appalachian Basin was drilled in 1975. It was a joint venture with the U.S. Department of Energy and private industry. The project included the first horizontal shale well and used seven individual hydraulically factured intervals to access the gas in the rock.
You live in Pennyslvania, and an oil and gas company approaches you to lease mineral rights to your land to tap into the Marcellus shale. Your family could really use the money.
Individual lease rights can be very lucrative, and include rental payments (when the well is being drilled, which may continue for the life of the well) as well as royalty payments (when the well is producing oil and gas). You may also be offered a one-time bonus payment from the energy company when you sign the lease. Plus some companies pay well siting fees.
However, only landowners can lease, and some cities or subdivisions ban leasing for oil and gas development.
What do you do?
Wow! Your first monthly royalty check came in for fracking proceeds for $10,000. That's a huge help.
Meanwhile, your next door neighbor didn't sell her mineral rights, even thought everyone around her did. That means even if natural gas is extracted from shale under her property, she's not entited to royalities because of something known as "rule of capture." Basically it means she can't prove the natural gas came from her shale, even if it did.
Oh no! Your drinking water is brown and corrosive after your neighbor began fracking on their property. The oil and gas company leasing the mineral rights says they're not to blame.
You and and other neighbors who didn't frack, including renters on property with fracked wells, find an attorney and file a lawsuit.
Oh no! Your drinking water is brown and corrosive after the fracking drilling began. The oil and gas company leasing the mineral rights says they're not to blame.
As a result of environmental concerns, the state passed a law known as Act 13, which enforces stronger environmental standards and authorizes local government impact fees on fracking developers.
Things started to get really ugly. Some state lawmakers and nearby cities that allow fracking filed a lawsuit against the Delware River Basin Commission, the state agency that supported the restrictions in your area. They want to expand fracking and claim the restrictions are harming opportunities in the state overall.
Because the DRBC is governed by a federal compact, the lawsuit will make its way through the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, and could potentially be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Nina Berman is a New York-based photographer
and member of the photo collective
Noor Images
Her series Fractured: The Shale Play documents the altered landscape and human consequences of unconventional gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation in Pennsylvania.
Click here to hear more.
An environmental group is protesting the spread of fracking in Pennslyvania. They're making a number of claims about the industry.
Which is of the following claims is true?
Not exactly.
Fracking fluids do sometimes end up in rivers, lakes, and streams. However, an EPA analysis of 151 spills from 2006 to 2012 found that just 10% ended up in surface water.
The National Resource Defence Counsel cautions thata the full impact of spills is difficult to measure, in part because "the ultimate fate of the spilled fluids and impacts of the spill are not typically studied."
Try again and see if you can get the right answer!
Answer source: EPA and NDRC
You got caught by an exaggeration.
According to the United States Geological Survey, anywhere from 1.5 to 16 million gallons of water are needed to frack a single well, depending upon things like rock formation and the type of well.
Consumption is a lot, but is considered "neglible" when compared to other sources like coal-fired power plants.
The last statistic was correct, but not for Pennsylvania. The data comes from the Permiam Basin in drought-ridden Texas, where the average job in 2016 used 10,496,987.86 gallons of fresh water -- enough to fill 15.9 Olympic swimming pools. Pennsyvania is able to use water recyling techniques to help lower that amount.
.
Try again and see if you can get the right answer!
Answer source: FracFocus, Chemical Disclosure Registry, USGS, NDRC, and San Antonio Express-News
This is a really difficult issue to measure conclusively.
In a 2016 analysis, the Enviromental Protection Agency was unable to conclusively determine that fractures in shale reached underground drinkng water resources. Part of the problem is it's not clear how close the fractures occure to aquifers.
In most cases, the two are separated by thousands of feet. But in others, fracking occurs in close proximity to water sources and chemicals from fracking have contaminated wells and other water sources.
Try again and see if you can get the right answer!
Answer source: EPA and NDRC
This is correct.
And the danger is the wastewater treatment process can fail. Spills can happen because of a broken pipeline (a 2015 pipeline rupture in North Dakota spilled 3 million gallons of wastewater into a creek), due to air pollution or leakage when stored in open pits, or because treatment facilities aren't proplerly equipped to handle all of the fracking pollutants.
And recycling creates byproducts such as TENORM (technologicalaly enhanced nataurally occurring radioactive waste) and other toxic concentrated waste.
Answer source: NDRC
Martha Rial is a Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist
based in Pittsburgh.
Her series Marcellus Shale looks at the places and people in
Western Pennsylvania who are impacted
by hydraulic fracturing.
Click here to hear more.
That's it for Pennsylvania
Head on over to our interactive documentary to learn more about fracking in North Dakota and Texas.
Or continue to play the game to see how fracking works in Colorado, or click on the fracking rig to reply Pennsylvania with different options!.