this is my first idea, al the things in the cup of water are the chemicals they use in fracking. These chemicals are getting into drinking wells and polluting peoples drinking water. This idea was too one sided though.
this idea was the two sides, for fracking and not for fracking, and they both had one goal to keep the water clean and not pollute. This was too literal.
this is brings up the question of wheather we should or shouldn't frack, this is too general of an idea.
these were my ideas down on paper after i couldn't find common ground.
this is the final idea and my poster. This is going off the idea of the two sides but instead of clean water as a commonality i made it money. The frackers are getting paid and getting cheaper gases, as well as the non frackers, and the people that own the land being fracked on are getting royalty money. I made the person on the dollar bill a mix of the workers and the public who do not want the digging to happen. I chose to represent those people with a woman, and the construction hat is the worker. I put no face on the woman because i wanted it to show no identity because it doesn't just talk to one person or side. The jagged shapes in the background represent the shale itself and the shaking up of the issue of shale. This also plays off of the make or break statement at the bottom of the page. The shapes are sturdy, like shale, which makes it, and they are also jagged which could break, also like shale.
This is a good video that brings up the good and bad point about the marcellus shale fracking.
http://www.energyfromshale.org/
In my poster i would like to call attention to the point that widen's the view of one group to include the other. i would like to widen the view of the drilling companies. I know that they think this is a good thing to do, because it is. It is less pollutants in the air, will help us create new jobs, and it will make us less dependent on other countries for their natural gases and oil. This is only a helpful and good process as long as it is done correctly to not harm the environment and people in the area. There has been recent pollution of drinking wells from the chemicals they use to drill, chemicals such as methane. In the video i have above you can see the effects of the chemicals to the water, it is defiantly not something we want to be drinking. There are also complaints that the many trucks traveling back and forth carrying heavy equipment have been damaging the local roads.
Along with these obvious risks to the environment and our health, there are also risks of the drilling process itself. The process involves drilling horizontally into the shale rock about 7,000 ft underground, 9 empire state buildings. They send down machines that create cracks in the shale, they then send a high pressure of water with many chemicals and sand in it to create more cracks in the shale so the gas can escape from the shale. They then pull this water back out of the well and transfer it to a man made holding pond lined with cement. It has been said by the drilling companies that these wells have a life of about 100 years. So the question is when will these cement walls fail and our environment and drinking wells will be polluted with these harmful chemicals.
The other problem is they are promising money to the land owners but by the time the land owners see the money they most likely will be passed away. Home owners near the drill sites that have had leaks and previous problems with water pollution now have testers from the drilling site come in and test the air in their homes. They check for chemicals that could be hazardous or flammable. Many people in these drilling areas feel that their lives have been taken over and changes drastically from drilling and the circumstances it has put them in. It has turned quiet natural landscapes and back roads into a loud, highly populated and annoying working area. Many people are stuck in these areas because of money constraints and they are fearful of what can happen to their health and their homes and land.
So what are the positives to shale drilling? It has created many new jobs for people, and it has lowered peoples electric and gas bills because we are using natural and cheap gas. With the unemployment rate being so high new jobs is a big positive aspect of these drilling wells. Also land owners are getting royalty payments, which are 15 % of the profit made. Which is a lot, especially with the economy being in such bad conditions. So there are many pros and many cons to this issue, but the question is why can't the drilling companies change their ways in order to make the drilling safer to the locals and environment? I understand this is a new way of drilling but they should perfect their techniques or drill farther away from drinking wells and homes. If the drilling companies can open their eyes and see what it is like on the other side of the fence i think we could have a good thing going here in the US. We will not longer need to be so dependent on other countries and we can lower the prices of gas. This can help build our economy back up if done safely and correctly.
News report about the marcellus shale coming into west virginia- http://www.dailymail.com/Business/201111240048
But the boom has been accompanied by claims of drinking water contamination and other environmental concerns. The Marcellus shale spans 95,000 square miles from Tennessee to New York and underlies all of Garrett County and part of Allegany County at depths of up to 7,000 feet. Residents of Western Maryland, where permits for Marcellus shale drilling have not been approved or denied by the state, can see fracking by looking across the border into Pennsylvania or West Virginia. Shimrock, who is the library director at Garrett College, said a Pennsylvania friend’s water well overflowed with sludge when fracking took place nearby. Another friend told her that his family had been promised 30 years’ worth of gas royalties, but after three years the royalties have decreased drastically. “Unfortunately, I haven’t seen a lot of positive — and much negative — in the way of the impact that this has had on communities and on individuals who have agreed to this kind of procedure on their properties,” said Shimrock, who now regrets leasing gas rights to her 50-acre farm in 2006.----http://times-news.com/local/x646421470/Md-weighs-pros-and-cons-of-fracking
this is also a very good site to find complaints and real peoples thoughts on the shale drilling- http://www.wkbn.com/content/news/local/story/Shale-Drill-Opponents-Environment-Trumps-Fast-Cash/6v3g2rbNFEWN9ZodMyvrJQ.cspx
Thi
