The biggest concerns with fracking are environmental and health concerns. For example, in the United States fracking doesn’t fall under the regulation of the Clean Air and Water Act. Additionally China, with almost 1.5 times the shale reserves of the US, doesn’t have any environmental regulation. This allows natural gas companies to operate without disclosing the chemicals they are injecting into the ground. If there is a report of contaminated ground water near a fracking site, this nondisclosure makes it very difficult to actually link the contamination to fracking. One way to hold natural gas companies responsible for any damage they do to the environment is to require them to disclose any chemicals put into gas wells.
Currently, fracking water is recycled for reuse however, in areas where fracking is popular, such as Texas, water is not very abundant, and therefore, is not always available for fracking. Two solutions have been proposed to further minimize water use. The first suggested is to use wastewater from mines to support the hydrofracking process. Wastewater created from mining can be transported to drilling sites from mines using pipelines. If wastewater is being used for hydraulic fracturing, then there is more freshwater available for cooking, cleaning, and other necessary activities.