Fracking has become one of the most popular methods for drilling for natural gas in the United States. It requires large amounts of water, sand, and chemicals injected deep underground under extreme pressure. The mixture is forced into rock formations to create fractures, which free the oil and gas within.

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U.S. Production on Public Lands

According to the Washington Post, a significant amount of U.S. fossil fuel is extracted from beneath federal lands and waters. In 2017, at least 42 percent of coal, 24 percent of crude oil, and 13 percent of natural gas came from mining operations on public lands. In addition, production from federal lands accounted for about 16 percent of U.S. oil and gas production in 2013, with roughly 20 percent of U.S. oil and gas reserves located beneath these public lands. By the end of 2014, oil and gas companies had leases on over 34 million acres of public land—an area more than seven times the size of New Jersey.

Climate Impact and Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Collectively, greenhouse gas emissions from extracting and burning oil and gas—primarily carbon dioxide and methane—contribute about two-thirds of net U.S. climate pollution. These cumulative emissions are a primary cause of global warming, threatening coastal economies with sea-level rise and jeopardizing regional food and water systems. Climate science is now clear that almost all of the world’s proven oil and gas reserves, as well as the additional “unproven” resources being targeted with fracking, must remain underground and unburned to prevent catastrophic environmental consequences.

Meanwhile, the extraction and combustion of these fuels accounted for nearly one-quarter of U.S. carbon dioxide emissions between 2005 and 2014, according to a study by the U.S. Geological Survey.

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Environmental Consequences of Fracking

Environmental advocacy group Food & Water Watch reports that fracking is also responsible for:

• Fragmenting forests and marring landscapes
• Competing with farmers for sometimes scarce water supplies
• Causing thousands of accidents, leaks, fires, and spills each year
• Killing people working at well sites
• Producing large volumes of toxic and even radioactive waste
• Pumping hazardous pollutants into the air
• Risking vital underground sources of drinking water
• Derailing explosive, mile-long oil trains near cities and along major rivers

Furthermore, the practice has been linked to:

• Inducing swarms of earthquakes
• Destabilizing the climate on which we all depend
• Disrupting communities across the country

Risks to Water Resources

There are several scenarios in which fracking can pollute groundwater and local drinking water, as Matt Pritchett wrote in the Journal of Environmental Law. It only takes one mistake to create an environmental disaster:

1. Fractures from fracking can extend directly into surrounding shallow rock formations that contain drinking water supplies.
2. The casing of the drilling tunnel could fail, causing fluids to escape into sources of drinking water or groundwater.
3. Fracturing fluids may be accidentally spilled at the surface, allowing them to contaminate surface water or seep into groundwater.

Not only do fracking fluids contain hazardous chemicals, but the wastewater produced by hydraulic fracturing activities also contains both fracking fluids and trace amounts of naturally occurring, yet hazardous, substances such as heavy metals, chlorides, and radioactive materials, according to Pritchett.

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Legal and Regulatory Battles

Despite volumes of scientific research and expert opinions highlighting the risks associated with fracking, the Trump administration opened more than 1 million acres of public and Indian lands in California to fracking in 2019.

“The risks of fracking to our health and our environment are real,” said Xavier Becerra, California’s attorney general, at a news conference after the state announced its intention to sue the federal government.

California may have been the first to fight back, but it is not alone. A coalition of Native tribes and other Americans is initiating its own forms of litigation.

In December 2020, nearly 600 groups, representing millions of Americans, sent the Biden transition team a draft executive order outlining how the next Interior Secretary could implement the president’s directive, according to the Center for Biological Diversity.

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Voices from Affected Communities

“Too many federal lease sales have already sacrificed the Greater Chaco region for short-term profit,” said Daniel Tso, Navajo Nation Council delegate and chair of the Health, Education, and Human Services Committee. “Local Navajo communities, through little or no ‘meaningful consultation,’ have consistently borne too much of the environmental and social impacts from federal oil and gas leasing. As a result, Navajo Nation communities in northwestern New Mexico have suffered increased coronavirus morbidity, a methane cloud visible from space, and some of the worst air quality in the U.S. There has to be a balance point: people over money. I welcome an end to federal fossil fuel leasing and the necessary transitions to more sustainable economies for the Navajo Nation.”

“The waters of the Gulf of Mexico are being polluted, which is throwing all life out of balance. Rapid expansion by the fossil fuel industry threatens our coastal communities and our ways of living,” said Juan Mancias, tribal chairman of the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas. “The Deepwater Horizon disaster showed the damage even a single spill can do to our waters and the environment — it's time to end new leases for oil and gas.”

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Legislative Proposals and Future Challenges

The Keep It In the Ground Act by Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) could have stopped new federal leases for fossil fuel extraction on federal lands and waters, but it has lain dormant in Congress since 2017.

A new regulation banning fracking on federal land would likely trigger substantial legal challenges as a violation of federal law that encourages oil and gas development, according to Bloomberg. However, collaboration between the President and the Bureau of Land Management under the Department of the Interior could succeed in rewriting drilling and land management plans and applying emergency authority to stop new oil leases and permits.

Click below to join others in demanding a ban on fracking on public lands.