Loose in the Lab | Home of Seriously Funny Science. Water footprint and virtual water. Precious Commodity. Molecular Workbench - An Interface to the Molecular World. Biomass to Ethanol. Meet the Energy-Saving Gadgets of the Future. Are Fracking Wastewater Wells Poisoning the Ground beneath Our Feet? A class 2 brine disposal well in western Louisiana near the Texas border. The well sat by the side of the road, without restricted access. (Abrahm Lustgarten/ProPublica) There are growing signs they were mistaken. Records from disparate corners of the United States show that wells drilled to bury this waste deep beneath the ground have repeatedly leaked, sending dangerous chemicals and waste gurgling to the surface or, on occasion, seeping into shallow aquifers that store a significant portion of the nation's drinking water.
In 2010, contaminants from such a well bubbled up in a west Los Angeles dog park. Within the past three years, similar fountains of oil and gas drilling waste have appeared in Oklahoma and Louisiana. There are more than 680,000 underground waste and injection [1] wells nationwide, more than 150,000 of which shoot industrial fluids thousands of feet below the surface. Federal officials and many geologists insist that the risks posed by all this dumping are minimal. Fe with Oxygen | Chem Toddler. Welcome to the Chemical Education Digital Library. Science Videos Search Engine.