Sara Myers is associate editor of iWWD. Myers can be reached at 847.391.1007 or [email protected].
It’s a new year. This means new trends to come, more products to showcase and even more stories to tell in iWWD. For myself, it is a chance to learn even more about the water industry as a whole.
I joined the iWWD team in September 2018. I was excited but a little nervous to enter an industry with so little knowledge of it. Fortunately, my colleagues were very supportive, as they also had started with little knowledge but have learned a lot since being exposed to so much in the industry.
As someone who is new to the water industry, my only knowledge about a topic such as fracking came mostly from television and mass media. The topic itself is controversial, with many environmental groups rallying against its use in the mining industry.
According to the BBC, environmentalists say potentially carcinogenic chemicals can escape during drilling and contaminate groundwater during the practice. Though, the industry suggests these incidents are results of bad practice, not dangerous techniques. Some environmentalists also say fracking is distracting governments and energy firms from investing in renewable sources of energy.
However, fracking also has become a massive, multi-billion dollar industry in the U.S. In my article on page 6, I examine the industry and how the market has risen in the past couple of decades, as well as its history prior to its common use. The fracking market is ever-changing with different chemistries and different types of water used for the process.
The fact that both freshwater and recycled water can be used for this process was brand new information to me. It shows just how much water reuse and sustainability has impacted our world. If more recycled water was used in fracking, I think it could perhaps take some of the controversy out of the subject.
What do you think? Is fracking something you would like to see covered? Email your comments to [email protected].
