A school and a large housing complex are located near a large fracking operation

Question

A school and a large housing complex are located near a large fracking operation in West Virginia with multiple well pads, two compressor stations, and industrial traffic. What are some pollutants and health effects of concern? What are some populations of concern and why should we be concerned? What exposure assessment approach would you use to assess exposure to these pollutants? Why? Would you use a case control design? Longitudinal cohort design? Or cross-sectional design? Why? How is your design better than the other designs? Minimum 500 word response. Please provide an overall substantive response. Please provide details and elaborate.

Explanation / Answer

FRACKING: It is a technique to release the natural gas and oil trapped inside bedrock that cannot be extracted with normal process. Technically it can be defined as hydraulic fracturing.

Air pollution is one major type of pollution caused due to fracking. Also Fracking could contribute dangerous greenhouse gases into atmosphere. The other major pollutant is contamination of water because sediments may go into underground drinking water and gets contaminated which are harmful to humans. Injections of fluids into deep wells also pollutes wells.

As mentioned in the question the people living near by drilling area are at risk and major health concerns do occur in people. The school children and all the people residing at the large housing complex are at greater risk. Apart from several pollutions, scientists found out that fracking can also cause smaller magnitude Earthquakes. So complaint or case should be filed against the fracking process carrying out in the nearby areas of West Virginia.

The only advantage of fracking is that price for drilling of natural gas through this technique is cheaper and also increase the production of natural gas. Apart from the business advantage, there are some serious concerns which affects both human health and environmental health. Fracking is a seriously debated political and environmental issue. In future new ways to extract safer natural gas ideas are to be implemented.

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