Are you saying that benzene is one of the injection fluids. Sure wouldn’t want that leaking into my aquifer.
Find me an aquifer it's leaked into already.
The aquifers are up at 150 - 500 feet depth.
The oil - IF it is below aquifers at all - and retrievable oil broken is below very few places actually being used for water supplies! - is at 5,000 foot, 12,000 ft and 15,000 foot depths. Below impermeable rock - because that impermeable is what trapped the oil in the first place. Now - how is the fracking fluid going to pollute the surface water?
I'm saying that it has been reported that sometimes benzene is one of the components in hydraulic fracturing fluids, suspensions, slurries, etc. It's my impression that water is the main ingredient, but the actual compositions are proprietary, and that's the main problem. Many of these drilling operations refuse to disclose the actual composition of their fracking fluids.
My best friend attended at least one townhall meeting in upstate New York about fracking. He said a bunch of folks from Pennsylvania(PA) came and gave testimony about horror stories in PA from their experience with hydraulic fracturing.
While the shale gas can be a mile or more below the water table, there can be fracking fluid spillage above ground and leaks pumping through and recovering it.
So, while we in NY need the cheap energy and revenue, I can understand why folks worry about their water supply.