Literature Review: Dangers Of Fracking And Water Pollution

My first article is from the Natural Resource Defense Council, Water Pollution: Everything You Need to Know by Melissa Denchak. This article is from the NRDC’s website, they are a non-profit organization founded in 1970 by a group of law students and attorneys at the forefront of the environmental movement. The NRDC partners with businesses, politicians, and the community to ensure all people have the right to clean air, water, and communities.

This article was written by Melissa Denchak, who is a freelance writer and editor. However, I do not believe that she is qualified to write on this subject because she has mostly written culinary based articles in the past. But based on the article I never would have guessed that she has written almost 37 articles on environmental issues. The focus of Denchak’s article is spread awareness of what water pollution is, what its causes are, what the effects are, and what one can do to prevent water pollution.

Denchak starts by describing water pollution is when harmful substances contaminate a body of water, rendering it toxic to humans or the environment. Water can be contaminated from pesticides and fertilizers leaking into groundwater which can then spread far from the original source as it leaks into streams, lakes, and oceans. She also mentions that nearly half of our rivers, streams and lakes are polluted and unfit for swimming, fishing, and drinking. Denchak advises to reduce our plastic consumption and properly dispose of chemical cleaners’ oils and non-biodegradable items to keep them from ending up in the drain. She also advises to maintain our cars so it doesn't leak oil antifreeze or coolant and to consider landscaping your yard, so it reduces runoff. In her article she draws the conclusion that every American must make the choices to prevent water pollution through the actions she listed above as well as start getting involved with our local policy makers.

I believe that the author’s argument is strong, although I doubt her expertise on the subject directly. Within the article she uses multiple sources which are hyperlinked throughout the webpage, they use some examples of their own and other credible organizations. She cited the United Nations, Live Science, The National Groundwater Association, and many more. Although she is not an expert, her writing is well organized and easy to understand, making the information speak for itself. None of the information she used was misconstrued or taken for granted, all of it was accurate and well placed. I couldn’t find anything worth mentioning when I was looking for details that she missed because she covered everything I could think of, in regards to water pollution. The authors tone was formal and informative, it was exactly what I would read if I was studying or doing research on this subject because she included many articles that expand on this subject as well.

The tone helped the article get her point across about how dangerous water pollution can truly be, the seriousness and lack of confusing scientific terms made it easy to read. Plus, all the solutions she proposed were all simple and could be easily followed by anyone because I know for a fact that I can maintain my car, yard, and my own reduce plastic waste. She does use a few broad generalizations but only in reference to what the reader may know about the subject already. I don’t believe that this author is biased simply because the subject of the article isn’t some thing you can be biased about unless it was an argument on why water pollution isn’t real (which doesn’t make any logical sense). Personally, I thought this article was exactly what I wanted to read about when I was going through the lectures for this class. I wanted informative with a call to action that was something I could actually do. Now although I doubt her credibility, her motivation is clearly coming from a place of love and care for the environment.

My second article is a news article from the Scientific American called Fracking Can Contaminate Drinking Water by Gayathri Vaidyanathan. To start, the author for this article has a strong background in science and journalism, making her almost the perfect person to write on this subject. She has reported and produced stories for Washington Post, Discover, Nature, The New York Times, ThinkProgress and others. “In 2012, she received an award for the best science journalist under 30 from the National Association of Science Journalists. Her coverage of fracking and groundwater contamination in the U.S. has prompted government investigations.” (Vaidyanathan paragraph 1) Vaidyanathan’s article is about how fracking contaminates groundwater and the scientist who discovered it. Dominic DiGiulio published a study that suggests that all groundwater in the Wind River Basin is contaminated with chemicals linked to hydraulic fracturing.

However, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA for short, has come the conclusion that natural gas has no widespread, systemic impacts. Encana corporation says that they already tested water wells after they operated in the pavilion basin. DiGiulio pointed out that labs just aren’t good at tracing water soluble compounds such as methanol, benzene, diesel, and other chemicals. In 2012, they tested water wells for methanol but EPA never released those results to the public. Then state regulators took over to publish suspicious findings, which in a peer reviewed study found The sampling wells contained methanol. They also contained high levels of diesel compounds, suggesting they may have been contaminated by open pits where operators had stored chemicals, DiGiulio said. The deep groundwater in the contained high levels of salt and other contaminants that are found in fracking fluid. The worst part is that shallow hydraulic fracturing is common almost everywhere in the U.S and there is no restriction to how shallow they can be. The EPA then found Nearly half the 19 concerning chemicals they so happened to find are unstudied, and do not know the safe level of exposure. The author knows this is a powerful article and as such made the information speak for itself without giving an opinion. This is happening inside a reservation, to people who don’t have access to clean water like we do in Mission Viejo.

There were multiple references that add to the story leading up to the discovery of contaminated water such as the EPA, Encana Corporation, Greenwire, and Energy Wire. The author did a great job relaying the information in a way that ties in the reader and didn’t take any information for granted. Considering the tone for this article was informational, I could not believe how wrapped up I found myself in. Evidence is clearly backed with a link to all studies included and referenced, the only thing she left out is that Wind River Basin is an Indian Reserve. They don’t have the resources and government funding to take care of the damage to the water. Plus, its not like they can up and move somewhere with cleaner water.

The author provided a well-reasoned analysis and finishes with a powerful statement that leaves you thinking about what you can do to help. Vaidyanathan’s article unfortunately does not give a direct opinion however you can tell by the title that she would agree with getting rid of fracking or at least making it safer. I believe she is unbiased but moderately in shock and angry over the fact EPA and Encana originally denied anything being wrong with these wells. Imagine how long they were drinking that water before someone finally proved them wrong. It’s hard to find mountains of bottled water on a reservation when they depend on groundwater. I believe the purpose of this article is to warn others of the danger and impact fracking has on the environment. If it continues all states where fracking takes place cold slowly get more and more contaminated water that we can’t quite filter out because we don’t know what exactly is in it.

My last article is a report from the Environmental Working Group, Farm Runoff Causing Widespread Drinking Water Pollution in Midwest written by Sarah Graddy. I believe this author was qualified to write this article because it is a report of their organization’s findings, which is similar to the previous articles author. The Environmental Working Group is a nonprofit corporation that reports on children’s health, farming, food, water, and energy. They wrote an article relating to water pollution in the Midwest that caught my eye because the Midwest has many valuable resources that could cause widespread contamination to people in the states and especially to those who directly benefit from the great farmlands in the U.S. In short Graddy’s report is explicitly covering a farm bill known as the “conservation compact” made in 1985.

The farm bill was originally in place to prevent soil erosion and polluted runoff in return for farm subsidies, but as of 2018 this bill has not been strictly enforced and there is already extensive damage. They used a satellite to start an investigation and found excessive erosion an runoff in land covered by the conservation compact in 4 different states. The damage done by the corrosion is even worse on croplands that aren’t protected under the farm bill. Graddy explains that when it rains small channels flow along the drainage pathways funneling fertilizer, sentiment, and other farm pollutants into waterways which can flow into drinking water. She then says, “EWG found that 60% of the pathways on highly erodible land covered by the conservation compact were unprotected and causing massive amounts of erosion and drainage,” (Graddy, paragraph 7).This eroded land and sediment then flows into groundwater or surface water and ultimately contaminates it, rendering it unsafe to drink, swim, or even fish in. Some of this runoff contains trihalomethanes which can increase the risk of developing bladder cancer in humans and can cause problems during pregnancy. This article is a bit short and only focused on the conservation compact but if it was a bit broader and more linked to the problems directly caused by runoff and expanded on the impact of it, it would be a much better article than this.

The author’s argument is to say the least, weak, I think that with a problem as potentially dangerous as this one, it should have been broadened. Sure, drinking contaminated water is bad but the Midwest is known for its cropland, the water they drink is going straight into their crops and grass. The contaminated water in the grass is then absorbed in the stomach of cattle then it too has gotten somewhat contaminated. If this water was anymore contaminated with radioactive chemicals or any other pesticides it could spread throughout America through our water and our food. To add to this lack of impact, they also didn’t use many sources only one from the USDA and another from the U.S. National Library of Medicine. If the title is going to be Farm Runoff Causing Widespread Drinking Water Pollution in Midwest, then wouldn’t you want to list other organizations findings that coincide with your own? The sources listed were barely touched on and honestly could have been used more, they absolutely to it for granted by now using more.

In addition, because they took their sources for granted, they missed an opportunity to support their findings. The tone of the article is formal and informative but it’s formatted in a way that is completely unnecessary. The article is intended to be a quick and easy read but isn’t supported enough to ever be used as a source in an essay. The only good thing I can say is that the article was very specific and singularly focuses on one topic but it just isn’t much of report. Now I believe this organization is conducting studies that are relevant to the subject of water pollution and environmental studies but I’m not sure if they’re focusing on the issue in general or what they specifically found. They definitely found new and relevant data that needed to be published but there wasn’t a call to action other then contact policy makers.

From the three articles I read I learned a significant amount about water pollution, what it is, the danger of fracking and its link to water pollution, and the danger the Midwest faces from run off. Water pollution is when harmful substances contaminate a body of water, rendering it toxic to humans or the environment. Water can be contaminated from pesticides and fertilizers leaking into groundwater which can then spread far from the original source as it leaks into streams, lakes, and oceans. The information from my three articles varied slightly in between sources, but none of it had stark contradictions to the others. In terms of bias, I felt all three were unbiased towards the impact of water contamination.

The website and especially the news article were amazing and offered great insight towards the subject. The EWG report felt less than insightful, but the facts were all there in terms of a new study but it just needed to be tied in and explained to the bigger picture. I would say that the news article by Vaidyanathan was completely unbiased and my favorite article of the three. Vaidyanathan 's article also showed the fault of how water is tested, especially since it passed two tests before finding they weren’t testing right. The news article was well above the others, giving plenty of sources and helpful information, and citing all facts. The one downside of the news article was that the information was published in 2016 which is pretty late compared to the other articles. The information I read compared well with lectures that I have listened to in past modules and I greatly enjoyed delving deeper into this subject in particular.