We are all aware of America’s dependence on foreign oil and it's desire to decrease that dependency. In the last sixty years over a million wells have been drilled looking for this much coveted substance. Yet as we continue to search for new sources here at home, the practice of fracking is posing increased dangers of water contamination. The gulf oil spill has awakened us to this truth.

A very popular process miners use when searching for oil or natural gas is fracking (or fracturing, fracking, fracting or hydrofracing). This involves pumping millions of gallons of water with or without chemicals to find new weak points at which gas or oil may be reached. The pressure is intended to fracture the earth, thus releasing the natural resource.

The obvious concern is having millions of gallons of chemicals pumped into the earth where it may contaminate public water sources. Recently, for example, much concern about this arose on the Delaware River. “American Rivers named 74 miles (120 km) of the (Delaware) river that originates in New York State and flows along the border of Pennsylvania and New Jersey as the most endangered in the United States because of the potential for contamination by chemicals used in a gas-drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing.”

Will these chemicals contaminate public water sources? The mining companies say, “No” and point out that no evidence to date has proven that fracking has contaminated public water systems. However, these past couple months we've witnessed first hand the worst environmental disaster the US has faced to date, and most of us feel as though we cannot trust these corporations who have loose or no corporate environmental ethical standards entirely.

This is an anonymous, unverifiable quote from the internet: “One guy in Texas was talking about how after fracking was done near his home that the water pressure changed and it blew several of his water pipes out. The water began to stink and gave his daughter a terrible rash. His horses refused to drink from the water trough, now covered with an oily film. Texas officials had little interest in investigating this and the oil and gas companies have no obligation to even disclose what they are pumping into the ground.” This debate is obviously ongoing.

The truth is, Americans are dependent both on clean water and on petroleum products. We cannot live without water, and we cannot carry on our present lifestyle without oil and gas. Therefore, we must find ways that provide both clean drinking water and petroleum access without one affecting the quality of the other. We need to do this while we continue our push to develop alternative energy technology.

If your water comes from a source influenced by fracking chemicals, then water contamination is a potential risk. If you favor the idea of utilizing our own natural resources here in the US and Canada, then you should be aware of the increased risks we will expose our water to in the process.

An immediate safety precaution requires that you do not wait until the well drillers or the environmentalists have proven the accuracy of their side of the debate. A safe, inexpensive solution is to use a berkey water filter to filter your drinking water even if it comes from a purification plant that has been tested and certified. This precaution is even more urgent if your water comes from open sources such as wells and cisterns that are more vulnerable to fracking practices. When it comes to safe drinking water, you can never be too cautious.