While water pollution is a possible result of fracking, it appears to be rare and a result of botched techniques.

Question

Answer

Con: While it is relatively rare for fracking operations to contaminate drinking water, the sheer quantity of operations makes it likely that contamination will eventually occur in some of them.

Answer

Pro: Drinking water typically lies just a few meters underground, while fracking wells go down thousands of meters. Drinking water is protected from contamination by kilometers of solid rock.

Should fracking be banned? (Complete Discussion)

While water pollution is a possible result of fracking, it appears to be rare and a result of botched techniques.

Pros

Cons

Drinking water typically lies just a few meters underground, while fracking wells go down thousands of meters. Drinking water is protected from contamination by kilometers of solid rock.

While it is relatively rare for fracking operations to contaminate drinking water, the sheer quantity of operations makes it likely that contamination will eventually occur in some of them.

Selected claim, opposing its parent

While water pollution is a possible result of fracking, it appears to be rare and a result of botched techniques.

Pro claim 1

Drinking water typically lies just a few meters underground, while fracking wells go down thousands of meters. Drinking water is protected from contamination by kilometers of solid rock.

Con claim 1

While it is relatively rare for fracking operations to contaminate drinking water, the sheer quantity of operations makes it likely that contamination will eventually occur in some of them.