The George Washington, Jefferson and Monongahela National Forests and the New River Gorge are all being threatened by fracking. Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," injects millions of gallons of fracking fluid and a mixture of nearly 600 chemicals, water and sand into a well to create pressure that cracks open rocks underground, releasing natural gas.
This industrialized process includes clear-cutting forests for well pads, thousands of intensive truck trips, air pollution and has even led to water contamination. This could not only impact the beautiful land, but have serious impacts on the people near those sites as well as downstream. Much of the Washington, D.C. metro area relies on drinking water from the Potomac, whose headwaters lie within the George Washington National Forest.
The coal, gas and oil industries have already carved up much of our landscape to squeeze out more and more profit. But I believe some things are more important than money, more precious than profit.
