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Ashley Millwood Professor Mason Essay Writing 19 April 2012 They Fracked Us! As an environmental student, Id heard about the creation of technology that could bring oil drilling to Arkansas. It was hard to fathom, as most drilling is done in the oceans, where the Earths crust is considerable thinner. So, why would they want to drill all the way down into the limestone and shale of our land? As I looked around the beautiful Ozark Highlands and Boston Mountains, my heart bled as I began to think of the atrocities my fellow man has been committing on the captivating landscape around the nation. Id seen no oil wells or hydraulic fracturing of the hills in the area, but the Fayetteville shale had become an increasingly popular phrase. I know that it will not be much longer. The hydraulic fracturing or fracking was already in full swing in the central, flatter lands of Arkansas surrounding Greers Ferry Lake, with over 4000 oil wells hidden amongst the farms. Years ago, acquiring oil from our soils would have been impossible, or at least highly cost inefficient. Years ago, no one would have seriously considered drilling for oil in the Natural State. Years ago, it wasnt too late. The deception to the American people by their elected officials, as far as I could tell, began as high up as the White House. Everyone knew that George W. Bush, Jr., came from a

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rich Texan oil family. Perhaps less publicized was the fact that his vice-President, Dick Cheney, was a CEO at Halliburton, the company creating the new fracking technologies. In 2005, Cheney convinced Congress to create the Halliburton loophole. This loophole exempted corporations from disclosing what chemicals (and carcinogens) were used in their fracking fluids, despite serious concerns that many of the chemicals posed serious human health hazards. Even the Environmental Protection Agency became wrapped up in the situation, who after studying the effects of the chemicals on the groundwater, ignored scientific data suggesting the dangers of the fracking fluids, concluding that there was no risk to the groundwater. Indeed, the waters were contaminated further upstream than I could see. I had heard the term fracking before, but never paid it much mind. To me, fracking would never occur in my backyard, so I had little interest in it. It wasnt until I heard the professors talking about drilling in our area that I became concerned and decided to research the issues further. In my research, I found that a documentary, Gasland had been created by a commoner like me, looking for the answers as to how our environment and society has been affected from all of these toxins being pumped into the earth. It showed as these toxins were spewed across the lands to evaporate into thin air, and how innocent people had become sick with migraines and various other ailments as their wells became contaminated with carcinogens leaching from fracking sites. These wells were beyond non-drinkable the WATER would catch fire if a flame was held nearby! It became apparent there was a silent war on our own soil that the public was completely oblivious to.

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I began to wonder what havoc the fracking had already wreaked on the flatlands. Suddenly, my brain went in to overdrive, deciphering the news reports and clues, and finding the answers to the questions Id been pondering. It started with a mysterious fish die off in a stream not far from where the fracking is supposedly taking place. The news reports were rather short and uninformative: Recent fish die offs in the creek, maybe attributed to pollution or decreased dissolved oxygen in water. Little people paid it any mind. It was not a murder or a headline story, and the incident was soon forgotten. A few months later, on New Years Eve, hundreds of black birds rained from the sky (again, in an area around fracking.) The reports? Well, they read something like Fireworks startle birds; hundreds dead as they fly into each other. Evidently, something in that area wasnt quite right. The final clues were far too obvious for anyone to mistake. A house in Quitman, Arkansas, exploded, likely due to gas build up from fracking, yet the owner of the nearby well, Southwestern Electric, never commented. A former Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality commissioners energy company faced fines after dumping toxic drilling sludge into local waterways and over-pressuring the natural gas well they were operating he never responded either. 5 of the 9 Arkansas Oil and Gas commissioners responsible for creating and enforcing regulations in the industry owned and operated oil and gas production companies at this time, and 2 other commissioners were officers and board members for such companies. Finally, earthquakes began to shake the ground. (In hindsight, they had been quaking in the flatlands since the fracking first began in the late 2000s. This was just the first earthquake felt

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by the mountain folk.) With each new injection of fracking fluid came another seismic wave, with two of the largest magnitude earthquakes since 1969 being experienced within days of an over-injection of fluids into a well. My eyes were opened. The atrocities were in my backyard. No, they had not reached my beloved mountains yet, but it was already at the foothills, where complaints of contaminated well waters and illnesses were booming with the quakes, while neighbors lined their pockets with oilstained money. The problems were much deeper than a few dead birds or fish; the area would never be the same. Yes, closures of the oil wells would stop the earthquakes, but the greed would remain, as would the toxic sludge seeping from the soils. People would continue to turn their backs to the issues, as long as they were profiting in the process. I became overwhelmed by a feeling of helplessness I could not explain. I knew that I could not make a difference alone, and wondered who could be trusted to help save our beautiful land. It was then I knew: As I typed these last lines, I passed it to you In hopes that youre that person that would spread the truth.