A natural gas extraction method known as fracking is under sharp scrutiny in several states. Tom Bearden reports from Colorado.
TranscriptExcerpt:
TOM BEARDEN: By now, you have likely seen the videos of people seemingly lighting their water on fire. The images were featured in a much-publicized documentary called "Gasland" and have generated government hearings and news coverage about whether the gas in the water was the result of drilling for natural gas.
All the attention has also popularized a word that was little known to the public just a few years ago: fracking.
(...)
TOM BEARDEN: It's shorthand for hydraulic fracturing, the process used to get the gas out of the ground. Concerns about it have ignited a national debate about whether natural gas, long touted as a greener alternative, is indeed a clean technology.
The process begins with vertical and then horizontal drilling through thousands of feet of rock and soil. Once the gas-laden shale layer is reached, a pipe is inserted and encased in concrete to prevent leaks. Then, a fracking fluid is injected at extremely high pressure, causing the rock to crack.
Matt Abell works in Colorado for Encana, one of the largest gas companies in North America.
MATT ABELL, Encana: The whole purpose of that is to induce a series of additional fractures, a fracture network within the rock, which then allows gas to come into the well wall.
TOM BEARDEN: Abell says the fluid used to make those cracks is 90 percent water, nine percent sand, and less than one percent added chemicals to facilitate the process.
But it's those chemicals that have gotten much of the publicity in recent months. Despite years of reassurances from government agencies and the gas companies, a lot of ranchers here in Garfield County believe these operations are a serious threat to their health.
Carol and Orlyn Bell owned a 110-acre ranch just outside of Silt, Colo., for 27 years.
CAROL BELL, fracking critic: The corporations themselves consistently insist that fracking fluid is nothing but water and sand. And we know that's not true. It's laced with hydrocarbons that are extremely dangerous. And we had a neighbor who became very, very ill because her water well was -- the fracking fluids got into it.
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