The United States has a long history with water and letting big companies willingly extract oil or gas from deep within the Earth’s surface. Water has always been something sacred and vital for humans. It runs through the veins of mother earth and can do a lot for anything living.

Many big companies are able to access much of the waters on federal and tribal lands because the U.S. auctions off land areas to wealthy corporations and investors. The hydraulic fracturing process is when a drill goes deep underground and injects gallons of fluids to extract natural gas and oil from rock formations. The results from fracking have left communities with toxic waste waters and polluted air. 

“Fracking destroys ground water sources and people within communities that are poor, and it destroys their lives,’’ Lynn Ocorr a biology professor at Finger Lakes Community College said.  “I’m a little more OK with hydrofracking now if they were to police it. It would be best if the United States continued fracking so we wouldn’t depend on the Middle East.”

The effects of hydraulic fracturing have been known to decline property values, increase crime and decrease local tourism and agriculture. The fracking process has also increased climate change. It leaks methane, which can take up to 12 years to be removed from the atmosphere. 

It is common for spills to occur, resulting in the contamination of drinking water. Landmark and environmental laws do not have any fracking laws so big companies can continue to drill in lands everywhere in the U.S. This is a problem.

“You can’t survive without water,”  Sayuri Pacheco a zoology student at SUNY Oswego said. “Everything is an ecological system connected to everything. The smallest species are ecological keystones to one another.”

Drilling permit applications escalated during the Trump administration. It increased more than 300% from 2017 to 2018. 12% of natural gas and 24% of crude oil were taken from federal lands and waters in 2019. 

President Joe Biden is on board with the Green New Deal, which was introduced by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Senator Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts. The plan proposes to get the federal government to step away from fossil fuels and greenhouse emissions.

The Green New Deal would target climate change as the Biden administration said it would. Biden agrees that the Green New Deal would target the need to change and meet the challenge. It would also target the environment and the economy which are connected. 

“We should seek a Green New Deal and clean energy,” Kenneth Ayhens said, Chief Officer in Environmental Health and Safety. “The United States has done a lot for climate change. A lot of countries do not do what we do. They should get on board like us. We used to use diesel fuel, now we use natural gas.”

Big companies are not required to release what chemicals they use when fracking. Research and studies have found leading evidence to supports the ban of fracking. More must be done to stop this harmful practice. 

Photo from Flickr