In light of the increased pressure to drill for more natural gas in states across the country, this report focuses on the dangers to drinking water from gas drilling. In particular, we examined hydraulic fracturing (often called “fracking”), a commonly used process gas companies employ to extract natural gas or oil reserves. Natural gas exists in bubbles underground, much like bubbles in carbonated soda. Getting to these pockets of gas requires injecting millions of gallons of water, sand and chemicals into the ground in order to crack open these bubbles in the rock to allow natural gas to flow to the surface.
