Can't We All Just Get Along

About 400 million years ago, weirdly shaped plants and exotic animals lived in a warm and shallow sea. They lived and died and floated to the bottom, eventually covered by the dirt and sediment held in the waters above them. Geology then went to work, crushing and heating this organic mix; pressing it and folding it; transforming it into a rocky material called shale.
Trapped between impervious limestone layers above and below it, the shale now holds vast reservoirs of natural gas, a very clean and wonderfully efficient fossil fuel. It, however, is trapped in the shale and can only be released by force. That force is a process called hydraulic fracturing (also known as hydrofracking or fracking) or pumping a high pressure slurry of chemicals and water into holes drilled in the rock, cracking the rock and collecting the gas seeping from the pores.
These Marcellus deposits, named after the town in central NY where an outcrop of the rock reaches the surface, are the largest repositories of natural gas in the United States.
Fracking is not without its environmental risks. Chemicals mixed to create the slurry can seep or be thrust into acquifers which supply drinking water. The metals, noble gases and other elements in the fracking fluid, taken in large doses, will harm human health.
Geologists, miners, health practitioners and government officials can mitigate this potential harm by working together to frack responsibly. Care at the drill site, ensuring the drill bore is lined and impervious to leaking in the layers of rock that do carry fresh water and a system of routine testing of ground water to monitor its status are steps in the right direction.
Industry, academia and government have formed teams to tackle problems in the past, they can do it again now. If we do this right, those that enjoy fresh, clean ground water can continue to do so. The rest of us can benefit from a a relatively inexpensive, clean and home grown energy supply. We can all get along!