Shale gas extraction 'causing water pollution'

Techniques used to extract shale gas increase the risk of a number of serious environmental health problems and risks, including groundwater pollution, it has been noted.

According to an article written by Dr Paul Gilbert and Dr Ruth Wood from the University of Manchester published on PublicService.co.uk, local communities near shale gas operations in the US have the potential to be hit by a myriad of environmental hazards.

"Potential local environmental impacts include the high levels of water required for hydraulic fracking [and] groundwater pollution from failure or loss of integrity of the well bore," they stated.

As well as this, large quantities of water are required to extract the gas and the report warned that the UK does not have enough water resources to cope with this.

The scientists said that to extract gas over a period of 20 years, as many as 113 million tonnes of water could be required.

Shale gas operations in Blackpool ground to a halt yesterday after a small earthquake in the region, which had a magnitude of 1.5.

Posted by Claire Manning