Natural Gas Ecological Concerns Increase

Natural Gas Rush Stirs Concerns Advanced drilling techniques that blast millions of gallons of water into 400-million-year-old shale formations a mile underground are opening up "unconventional" gas fields touted as a key to the nation's energy future. Would gas wells damage water wells? Would chemicals poison groundwater? Would fabled trout streams be sucked dry? Would the pristine upstate reservoirs that supply drinking water to New York City be befouled? So loud were the protests in New York that Gov. David Paterson directed the Department of Environmental Conservation to update its oil and gas drilling regulations to reflect the advanced drilling technology, which uses millions of gallons of water and poses waste-disposal challenges.

http://www.livescience.com/environment/081117-gas-drilling.html