By: Martha L. Castillo
Chances are that you have heard of the term
"fracking" before.
Hydraulic fracturing is a technique that allows
stimulation of the production of resources like oil and gas (McLaughlin et al.,
2016). It is an unorthodox technique because it requires that water, sand, and chemicals
be injected into gas or an oil rock formation. Fluids that were once trapped in
small cracks will easily flow through and rise to the surface (McLaughlin et
al., 2016).
Figure 1: Representation of how crops might
intake fluids from hydraulic fracturing.
Fracking has recently been taking place in
agricultural land; where they grow the crops and raise the livestock that end
up at your dinner table (McLaughlin et al., 2016). You might think that
engineers are safely disposing of what eventually rises back up into topsoil,
but that is not the case.
It took 42-71 days for chemicals like ethylene
glycol to biodegrade, raising questions about how the environment and your
health are being affected (McLaughlin et al., 2016).
The study focused on the path chemicals take when there is accidental
spilling (McLaughlin et al., 2016). Researchers found that just 3 out
of hundreds of additives show toxicity in crops from the intake of the
nearby water being used on crops and the rest of the agricultural land
(McLaughlin et al., 2016).
References
McLaughlin,
M.C., Borch, T., and Blotevogel, J.2016. Spills of hydraulic fracturing chemicals on agricultural topsoil:
biodegradation, sorption, and co-contaminant interactions. Environmental
Science & Technology. 50 (11), 6071-6078. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.6b00240
Image: From article.
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