Oil and natural gas fracking, on average, uses more than 28 times the water it did 15 years ago, gulping up to 9.6 million gallons of water per well and putting farming and drinking sources at risk in arid states, especially during drought.
Those are the results of a U.S. Geological Survey study published by the American Geophysical Union, the first national-scale analysis and map of water use from hydraulic fracturing operations.
Fracking, which was banned in New York this week because of water pollution and climate concerns, injects large quantities of sand, water and chemicals into the ground at high pressure to release trapped oil and natural gas. The process has been found to leak large amounts of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, and the resulting fossil fuels are the primary cause of climate change.
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