What is Fracking?

Relatively new drilling technology, high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, now makes it possible to reach natural gas reserves that underlie much of the state of Ohio.

Commonly referred to as "horizontal hydrofracking" or just "fracking," deep-shale natural gas drilling uses high-pressure injection of water, sand, and chemicals to release the trapped gas.

The environmental and health impacts from high-volume, horizontal hydraulic fracturing in other states are shocking and well documented, with a significant number of spills, blowouts, leaking wells, and other accidents and releases of contaminants.

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Learn More & Latest News

• OEC's Fracking Fact Sheet



• Press release: Ohio EPA finalizes air permits for deep-shale gas drilling: the good, the bad, and the missing Listen to the OEC's Jack Shaner discuss fracking with Attorney General DeWine and others
• Read the OEC's testimony before Youngstown City Council about oil & gas wastewater disposal and recent earthquake
• View photos from press conference about fracking near the Grand River
• OEC Press Release: Deep-shale 'fracking' comes to Ohio's pristine Grand River watershed
• Read the OEC's comments to ODNR's Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management about the draft rules oil and gas well construction
  
  
• Learn the Hard Lessons of Coal Pollution (US News & World Report)
• Disclosure of 'fracking' chemicals not complete (Columbus Dispatch)
• Ohio moves ahead with shale exploration while other states take a break (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• Debate over fracking continues (Ohio News Network) VIDEO
• Sen. Skindell proposes a moratorium on deep shale horizontal hydraulic fracturing
• Study links flammable drinking water to fracking
• Municipalities seek ways to limit drilling (Canton Rep)
• Sandra Steingraber speech in Albany, NY, to ban hydrofracking (video)
• Fracking in Pennsylvania (blog)
• Video of what a homeowner now faces every day since construction of a 'fracking' well has begun nearby (link to YouTube).
• Akron Beacon Journal Op-Ed

BELOW: Presentation by Joe Logan of the OEC about fracking and its environmental risks. (courtesty of Ohio Farmers Union)

Questions?

Contact Trent Dougherty, Ohio Environmental Council, (614) 487-7506.