hydrofracking

I am in West Virginia.  We were driving up Backbone Mountain to start hiking and we passed a reclaimed surface coal mine.  My uncle told us about the reclaimed mine and how the trees were clear cut and the water was polluted by the mining.  Now that the land has been reclaimed by the people of the state there is just a big hole with water draining down into a sludge pond. The sludge pond is full of pollution. They planted trees but they are all one kind of pine tree and are not like the forest before the mining started.

My uncle also told me about hydrofracking. A lot of power comes from natural gas.  We used to be able to get this natural gas by simply drilling a hole in the ground and the gas would come out.  Most of that gas has been used up. Now they've found little pockets in shale.  They can get the gas out by drilling a hole and shooting water and chemicals down into the shale to get the gas. The danger of hydrofracking is that these chemicals may seep into people's and animal's drinking water. People can and are getting very sick. It is already happening here in West Virginia, but they want to start doing it in New York.  In New York they want to start hydro fracking under the watershed.  This could lead to polluting New York City water and more people getting sick. Start fighting against hydrofracking now!

On the same drive we saw windmills making windpower.  If we could have more non-polluting energy like this people would not need to depend on coal and hydrofracking.