Fracking Produces Oil, Pollution And Hypocrisy

Fracking by energy corporations like ExxonMobil are using the intensive injection of chemicals, groundwater and Western Wisconsin sand mined through weak regulation to set off a profitable boom in natural gas and oil production. 

What else has all this new drilling, piping and shipping brought to the surface?

*  Well, some of the 'product' has found its way into now-flammable drinking water (video).

*  Or, by the tens of thousands of barrels, into wheat fields.

*  Here's another by-product: earthquakes:

Ohio geologists have found a probable connection between fracking and a sudden burst of mild earthquakes last month in a region that had never experienced a temblor until recently, according to a state report.

The quake report, which coincided with the state’s announcement of some of the nation’s strictest limits on fracking near faults, marked the strongest link to date between nerve-rattling shakes and hydraulic fracturing -- the process of firing water, sand and chemicals deep into the earth to eject oil and natural gas out of ancient rock. 

Last month, Ohio indefinitely shut down Hilcorp Energy’s fracking operation near the Pennsylvania border after five earthquakes, including one magnitude-3 temblor that awoke many Ohioans from their sleep.

*  And for your fracking files, there is this account of hypocrisy unmatched, as no less than the ExxonMobil CEO himself is saying, in court, hey not in my backyard; that fracking is polluting:

...while [Rex] Tillerson believes that the inevitable noise pollution that accompanies the fracking process—not to mention the potential for water contamination and other dangerous side-effects even when it is done safely (and some would strenuously argue that it is not possible to frack safely)— is of no real significance when it affects someone else’s neighborhood, he surely thinks it to be a pretty big deal when someone dares to get involved in fracking in Rex Tillerson’s neighborhood.

So much is this the case that Tillerson—ExxonMobil CEO and proud proponent of fracking as a key to both America’s and his company’s great energy future—has joined a lawsuit seeking to shut down a fracking project near Mr. and Mrs. Tillerson’s Texas ranch... 

Making this all the more entertaining is the content of the lawsuit... [which] goes to great effort to lay out the problems experienced by those who are subjected to the fracking process—problems that Tillerson has always been quick to dismiss when his company picks a location that is not in his own neighborhood. 

Hat tip, ET.