Routine checkups: health and water-use studies grow up alongside fracking operations.

Two issues that have accompanied hydraulic fracturing activity particularly in Northern Colorado where production is booming, are the safety of the practice from a health standpoint and the amount of water of used.

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Indeed. water is a precious commodity along the semi-arid Front Range. But Dave Neslin, a partner with the law firm Davis Graham & Stubbs and past director of the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission, says the amount of water used for hydraulic fracturing pales in comparison to other uses. On top of that, it's tightly regulated, no matter who is using it.

"The state of Colorado took a look several Years ago at the amount of Water that would be required for hydraulic fracturing, particularly for these horizontal wells. What the state found is that over the next live years die use of water for hydraulic fracturing for these wells was likely to involve on the order of one-tenth of one percent of the total water used in the state on an annual basis. Most water is used For agriculture; a significant amount of water is used for municipal purposes; a very small amount of water is used for oil and gas development generally or hydraulic fracturing specifically.

"Understand that someone using water for hydraulic fracturing has to go through the same process of obtaining and permitting and applying for a water right as any other user of water." Neslin says. "In Colorado now, anyone drilling an oil and gas well has to sample the groundwater before and after they drill and hydraulically fracture a well. So it's just another use of water that is regulated by the state."

Helping to ease concerns about hydraulic fracturing practices is the increasing willingness of states to require disclosure of chemicals used in the process.

"In the last three years. 19 slates have adopted mandatory hydraulic fracturing chemical disclosure laws," Neslin say. "It requires anyone hydraulically fracturing a well to disclose the makeup oldie fluid--both the identity of the chemicals and the concentration of the chemicals on the Fraclisocus.org website, which is a publicly available, searchable website." Colorado was a leader in developing this disclosure method that included input from the public. regulators, environmental community and the oil and natural gas industry.

Neslin agreed that studies will help make the pro-fracking and and-fracking camps less polarized.

"I think as that kind of information is generated, that will help move...