Fracking Hell: what it’s really like to live next to a shale gas well

[Uben]

2. I'm about 20 miles northeast of Ponder....

....no fracking in my immediate area, but there are literally thousands of gas and oil wells in my county. I worked on a wire-line and perforating truck in the oilfield for a while and I have seen how unresponsible these independents do business. The railroad commission is in charge of regulating and monitoring these oil companies, and in the two years I worked in the oilfield, I never saw anyone from the RR commission.
Once a well is abandoned, it is plugged and cemented. We were required to put at least six bags of concrete on top of the plugs, but I have seen guys just spread a little cement around the wellhead so if the RR comm. did show up, it appeared to be done when it was not. They don't give a shit. Whatever is the cheapest way. They are going to foul the underground reservoirs of water and there will be no way to tell who is responsible. Actually, they ALL are reponsible as well as the RR commission. However, the RR Comm. has so few inspectors, there is no way they can do their job correctly. One guy to watch over thousands of wells?
If I lived within a 1/2 mile or so of a fracking operation, I would sell out and move before the water supply goes.
Also, it takes millions of gallons of water to frack a well, and they are using up a lot of the surface water we use for drinking to frack these wells. There are always ongoing battles for water rights, and the damned oil companies usually win by throwing absurd amounts of money into the mix. Greed and pollution wins....we lose.