A different kind of F-word is stirring a linguistic and political debate as controversial as what it defines. The word is "fracking" -- as in hydraulic fracturing, a technique long used by the oil and gas industry to free oil and gas from rock.
It's not in the dictionary, the industry hates it, and President Barack Obama didn't use it in his State of the Union speech -- even as he praised federal subsidies for it.
The word sounds nasty, and environmental advocates have been able to use it to generate opposition -- and revulsion -- to what they say is a nasty process that threatens water supplies.
Here's what hydrofracking operations do to the surrounding groundwater supply.
Some ingredients mixed into the hydraulic fracturing fluids were common and generally harmless, like salt and citric acid. Others were unexpected, like instant coffee and walnut hulls, the report said. Many ingredients were “extremely toxic,” including benzene, a known human carcinogen, and lead.But by all means lets watch our language so as not to hurt anybody's feelings.
Companies injected large amounts of other hazardous chemicals, including 11.4 million gallons of fluids containing at least one of the toxic or carcinogenic B.T.E.X. chemicals — benzene, toluene, xylene and ethylbenzene. The companies used the highest volume of fluids containing one or more carcinogens in Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas.
The report comes two and a half months after an initial report by the same three lawmakers that found that 32.2 millions of gallons of fluids containing diesel, considered an especially hazardous pollutant because it contains benzene, were injected into the ground during hydrofracking by a dozen companies from 2005 to 2009, in possible violation of the drinking water act.
A 2010 report by Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, found that benzene levels in other hydrofracking ingredients were as much as 93 times higher than those found in diesel.
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