Hydraulic fracture methods ("fracking") are associated with a range of environmental impacts, some of which are not fully characterised or understood. The process consumes huge amounts of water (estimated at anywhere between 9,000 and 29,000 cubic metres of water for a single well). A range of hazardous chemicals are added to fracturing fluids (at least 260 chemical additives are known to be used)
, some of which are toxic, carcinogenic or mutagenic. These chemicals can contaminate groundwater if well bores fail, and are part of waste fluid streams returned to the surface, which can also pick up contaminants such as heavy metals, volatile hydrocarbons and naturally occurring radioactive elements from the shale itself. Well-drilling operations can also cause severe landscape degradation and noise pollution simply as a result of normal operations. On top of all this, it appears that the greenhouse gas "footprint" of shale gas may be significantly greater than for conventional gas and has even be claimed by some to be worse than coal. Until the impacts are fully investigated, understood, addressed and regulated we call for significant more effort to be put into understanding the full impacts of fracking.
