Report: Fracking in Colorado uses a city’s worth of water
A new report from a Boulder-based environmental group says hydrofracking in Colorado uses a city's share of water.
The amount of water used each year for hydraulic fracturing at Colorado oil and gas drilling sites is enough to supply 166,000 to 296,000 people for a year for household use, according to a report released Wednesday by Water Resource Advocates, a Boulder, Colo-based environmental group.
The report offers a somewhat larger estimate of fracking water use in the state than a report in March from the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission.
The Western Resource Advocates report says that fracking in the state uses 22,100 to 39,500 acre-feet of water a year. One acre-foot equals 325,851 gallons, enough water to cover one acre to the depth of one foot.
The report is titled “Fracking Our Future: Measuring Water and Community Impacts from Hydraulic Fracturing” (download here).
The report cites Colorado Oil and Gas Association data indicating that a typical fracking job uses 1 to 5 million gallons of water.
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