News on Hydrofracking for gas

[auroraglacialis]

This is from:
Fracking Fluids Poison a National Forest | Common Dreams
and from
Adams, Mary Beth (2011) "Land Application of Hydrofracturing Fluids Damages a Deciduous Forest Stand in West Virginia", joenq; 40: 1340–1344

In short, many countries in the US allow surface disposal of fracking fluids and this study shows that this kills about everything on that sites. So they literally dump billions(!) of gallons of toxic waste into the landscape of these states that kills everything in its path. What a fracking nightmare!

75,000 gallons of fracking fluids, which are injected deep underground to free shale gas and then return to the surface, were applied to the assigned plot over a two day period during June 2008. The following effects were reported in the study:
* Within two days all ground plants were dead;
* Within 10 days, leaves of trees began to turn brown. Within two years more than half of the approximately 150 trees were dead; and
* “Surface soil concentrations of sodium and chloride increased 50-fold as a result of the land application of hydrofracturing fluids…” These elevated levels eventually declined as chemical leached off-site. The exact chemical composition of these fluids is not known because the chemical formula is classified as confidential proprietary information.

[....]
Some of these fluids, now mixed with rock fragments, are returned to the surface for disposal. The volume of these hydrofracturing fluids from a single well can range from around 50,000 L to more than 10 million L (Soeder and Kappel 2009). Land application of hydrofracturing fluids is permitted by some states as a means of disposal, among them West Virginia, Arkansas, and Colorado (Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality,2010; Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, 2009)