What the Frack?
Brian Snodgrass
Hydraulic fracturing also
known as “fracking” has gained an enormous amount of popularity in the US over
the past decade. In a nutshell, a hole is drilled thousands of feet into
the ground then water, chemicals, and sand are injected down the cement cased
well to fracture the shale rock. Fracturing the source rock creates
fissures that allow the capturing of natural gas. There are many pros and
cons associated with fracking, which causes a strong separation between the
public opinion. Reducing dependence on foreign oil, creating jobs, and
billions of dollars in profit are the main advantages that result from
fracking. Contaminating water aquifers, pollution, wastewater disposal
and lack of regulation are the major disadvantages. The following news
articles are intended to display three different views regarding hydraulic
fracturing |
| Herald-Standard (local paper in Pennsylvania) article: Fracking wastewater can be highly radioactive by: Rachel Morgan |
The first article is about how fracking wastewater can be highly
radioactive. Rachel Morgan of the Herald – Standard, writes about
Randy Moyer who hasn’t being able to work in 14 months. Moyer started
working in August 2011 for a small trucking company that hauls brine wastewater
from gas wells throughout Pennsylvania. The article states, “By November
2011, the 49-year-old trucker said he was too ill to work, suffering from
dizziness, blurred vision, headaches, difficulty breathing, swollen lips and
appendages, and a fiery red rash that covered about 50 percent of his body”
(Morgan). Moyer believes that chemicals in the fracking fluids and
exposure to radiation could have caused his sickness. The first part of
the article addresses Moyer’s illness, but the second half shifts towards a
scientific approach to radioactive material and who measures it.
This article is
anti fracking. The majority of the paper
cites well known scientists or science firms that state the radioactive
material associated with hydraulic fracturing.
According to the Herald – Standard, “A geological survey report
found that millions of barrels of wastewater from unconventional wells in
Pennsylvania and conventional wells in New York were 3,609 times more
radioactive than the federal limit for drinking water and 300 times more
radioactive than a Nuclear Regulatory Commission limit for nuclear plant
discharges.” To counter attack this argument-
a study done by Penn State University describes the radium and barium found in
fracking flowback as originating from ancient brines instead of the fracking
fluid used by the industry to frack wells.
 |
| MSNBC article: Fracking provides boundless energy, jobs, and earthquakes? Written by By Mario Garcia and Ronnie Polidoro. Reporter: Harry Smith |
The second article is titled- Fracking provides boundless energy, jobs, and earthquakes? Overall, the article introduces what exactly fracking is. Next, it elaborates on the types of jobs that it has to offer, environmental dangers, and the two earthquakes that were triggered two years ago in Youngstown. It also displays that not all people in Youngstown believe that it is a sinful deed to frack, some believe it can be achieved properly by using the correct engineering.
MSNBC reporters do a fine job by looking at both the advantages and disadvantages from fracking, but overall I felt that they were more anti-fracking. An example, “In Scranton, Pa., local utility company UGI Energy Services recently tore up West Locust Street and, within a few hours, had installed a natural gas line to Howard Penny’s house.” Using tore up makes it sound like West Locust Street was really shredded to pieces. Another example of over exaggerating would be, “In 2011 on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, Youngstown had two significant earthquakes.” I realize a place like Youngstown, an intracratonic setting, is not prone to earthquakes, but two small earthquakes below a 4.0 isn’t that significant.
 |
| New York Post article: Fracing Frack hysteria by Kevin Williamson |
Hi, Brian:
ReplyDeleteGood job. You hit the target on this journal entry -- one topic, three articles, and three frames. Overall you did a good job pulling out illustrative quotes and phrases. I would have liked a couple more examples from the first article, but you more than made up for that issue in your discussion of the others. The articles you picked were interesting, and fracking as a topic certainly is. Because there is so much ambiguity surrounding the science of fracking, there is plenty of opportunity for different interests to try to impose various frames.
Again, be a bit more careful with your writing; make sure you look over the document before you post it. I highly recommend writing it in Word and then cutting and pasting; that way you can spell-check and grammar-check. Use Chicago Style for your reference list. Be sure to use a quotation mark at the start of a quote; otherwise it is hard to tell when the words are yours versus someone else's. There were other, similar small issues. One example is this sentence, which actually should be two or at least should involve a semi-colon, and also should specific to what its pronouns refer: "It also displays that not all people in Youngstown believe that it is a sinful deed to frack, some believe it can be achieved properly by using the correct engineering."
But those points aside, your content was on-target and you got the gist of the assignment. .
Journal content: 1.6/1.6
Journal writing quality 0.2/0.3