Gone for Good: Fracking and Water Loss in the West reports on how the states of Colorado, Montana, North Dakota, and Wyoming let the oil and gas industry drain irreplaceable groundwater resources and remove these resources from the hydrological cycle. his water loss threatens the future of other industries, agriculture, and the families who live near oil and gas development.
The report found that oil and gas extraction practices are permanently removing at least seven billion gallons of water from the hydrologic cycle each year in just four arid western states.
The reason for the huge loss of water is that states have failed to place adequate protections on the use and contamination of fresh water in hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” the technology that has allowed the oil and gas industry to extract oil and gas from shale formations, such as the Bakken field in North Dakota and Montana.