Drilling Makes Upper Delaware Most Endangered River in U.S., Group Says

Natural gas drilling in the Delaware River Basin has made the Upper Delaware River, the water source for 17 million people, the most threatened river in the United States, according to the annual report of the conservation group American Rivers. The rapid growth of hydro fracturing, or “fracking” — a drilling method used to extract natural gas from shale — poses a serious threat to the Upper Delaware and its tributaries, according to American Rivers. During hydro fracturing, drillers inject a mixture of water, chemicals, and sand at high pressure down a well bore and into the surrounding rock, creating fractures that release natural gas reserves. In its annual listing of the nation’s 10 most endangered rivers, American Rivers, a Washington, D.C.-based advocacy group, says that not only do the chemicals used in fracking pose an environmental hazard to groundwater, but the process itself uses huge amounts of water, which then needs to be treated. The group urged tighter government control over hydro fracturing, including federal legislation that would monitor fracking under the Safe Drinking Water Act. Among the other rivers on the list is the Gauley River in West Virginia, which is threatened with pollution from mountaintop removal mining operations.


From Yale 360