For a long time now, we’ve been hearing stories out of Pennsylvania about the havoc that fracking has wreaked on people’s drinking water. Nearly every day we’d see news articles about how their water smelled funny, looked horrible, and tasted even worse. Perhaps you even saw the YouTube video about the water catching on fire. Now, the tables have turned. Just a couple of weeks ago, articles came out claiming that scientists have proven that fracking does not pose a danger to drinking water.
Fracking, a process used to draw fossil fuels from shale, involves pumping water – and a few chemicals – into the earth. However, according the head of the petroleum engineering department at Texas A&M University, “No matter what you may read, hydraulic fracturing does not involve pumping toxic chemicals under high pressure near public aquifers.” Also, he stated that 99.5% of what is commonly used is very simply a mixture of pure water and quartz sand. The remaining 0.5% is guar gum (a food product), mild detergents, and bactericide. Even the EPA administrator admits publicly that she is “not aware of any proven case where the fracking process itself has affected water.”
Okay, so both sides present a pretty convincing story. Which do you believe? Personally, I’m not sure that it matters to me whether they debate it all year long, as long as the drinking water my family consumes is safe and tastes good. I guess I’m not overly convinced that there isn’t a hidden motive behind the anti-fracking AND the scientific studies, so I doubt that I’ll ever trust either theory completely. And, I’m sure not going to wait until they are finished arguing to get a drink! That’s why I think it’s important to take matters into our own hands with the help of a high-quality water treatment system that includes either a reverse osmosis or ion exchange water filter. I honestly believe that waiting for the newspaper to report whether or not my water is safe is like burying my head in the sand waiting for it to all get better. I refuse to trust my health and my children’s health to a gas or oil company who stands to lose millions if my town’s water problems are pinned on them.
The good news is that water treatment doesn’t have to break the bank or be time consuming and labor intensive. You can simply call a water treatment company in your local area, have them test your water, and ask that they recommend a drinking water system that will meet your water demands and budget. Most importantly, however, is that you make sure that the drinking water system is certified by the Water Quality Association to remove the contaminants that exist in your area.
