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Hydraulic Fracturing and Your Health: Water Contamination

Abstract: Fracking operations consume and contaminate enormous quantities of water. In order to fracture a single well site, natural gas companies typically use over 4 million gallons of water. This amount of water is equivalent to what 11,000 American families use in a day. Such intensive water use has become an issue in states such as California, which is experiencing a historic drought, and places hydraulic fracturing in competition with other consumers of water including households, agriculture, industry, and recreation. Nearly half of all fracking operations occur in areas with high or extremely high water stress.