Maryland Passes A Fracking Ban

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This past Monday, March 27th, 2017, the Maryland Senate passed a vote 35 to 10, effectively banning the process of hydraulic fracturing – or “fracking” – from the state. To many environmentalists, this is an unprecedented victory.

All over the country for quite a few years now, the topic of fracking has been widely debated. Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) is the process of shooting pressurized water underground through a pump, in order to push out and obtain natural gases below the Earth’s surface. The majority of the scientific community has found that fracking has been linked to methane leakage into local water supplies – which in some cases enables citizens to light the water from their faucets on fire – which is proven unhealthy for human consumption. Fracking has also been linked to the leakage of unwanted minerals in water supplies and even earthquakes if drilling is done close to the edge of a fault line.

Even despite all the harm that fracking can potentially cost, the argument supporting its continuation is the ever increasing need for sources of fuel, as the United States seems to be losing its sources as the years go on, which seems like a fair argument.

Even so, opponents of fracking argue, “is fracking worth the consequences?” North Point Senior Aaron Abshire doesn’t think so. Abshire questions the pro-fracking argument, “Why tear up the place we live in for energy that won’t last forever? We only have a limited supply anyways!” Abshire went on to ponder alternative solutions, stating, “There are several means of obtaining energy that are cleaner. We have them in a practically infinite supply. We just need to invest in these energy types more seriously.”

Many states have been fighting fracking for years, especially Pennsylvania, Texas, and California. Now that Maryland has officially banned fracking, residents may now potentially end up avoiding a plethora of environmental consequences as a result. Now one question remains to be answered, “What will we do instead?”