Photo: Frack Free Dorset campaigners at Balcombe in Sussex (and if you look carefully you’ll spot
Dorset Energized’s very own Paul McIntosh!)

Did you know?…
Fracking uses between 3-8 million gallons of water per frack?

As World Water Week 2013 comes to an end today, its the perfect time to look at one of many reasons why Fracking – Hydraulic Fracturing for shale gas – is causing such concern and outrage for local communities and environmental groups.

Why should we be concerned about fracking?

There is a substantial amount of evidence documenting the side effects of hydraulic fracturing, the majority of which are related to water contamination.
The main causes of concern include:

• Methane contamination of ground water.
• The toxic chemicals (and their carcinogenic properties) used in the process.
• Contamination of water as a result of various materials leaching out of fracked rocks into the fracking fluid. Of particular concern are toxic elements like arsenic that can be brought to the surface by this process.
• Radioactive Contamination. Radioactive isotopes (such as radium-226) can also be leached out of rocks the fracking fluid passes through. Biological concentration of these materials up the food chain would be the largest concern.
• Food supply contamination via contaminated water.
• The quantity of water involved in the fracking process in a climate of drought, water resource pressures and the needs of the agricultural community in Dorset.
• Fracking has also been linked with air pollution, due to the production of ozone and leaks of a variety of volatile chemicals. Increases in respiratory problems have already been reported around the first fracking site in the UK.
• Fracking has also been associated with earthquakes, most notoriously in the UK in Lancashire.
• Fracking also demands an industrial landscape and an increase in traffic, the infrastructure of which has its own pollution consequences.
• Fracking also extinguishes any opportunities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on a county or national level.

(Info above with thanks to FrackFreeSomerset)

Local group Frack Free Dorset have now set up a new website where you can find out more on: http://frackfreedorset.org.uk.

Check out our previous blog posts about Fracking for further reading too: www.letsgetenergized.co.uk/archives/category/fracking-2.

At Dorset Energized we agree with environmental groups including Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth that the UK government should stop wasting resources on looking for unsustainable fossil fuels including by fracking, and instead simply invest more in renewable energy – and that’s something we can all do as individuals too even if its something as simple as switching to a green energy supplier (and remember the Soil Association’s moto this Organic September: Small Changes = Big Difference)!