Echo Barrier Blog

For adults, noise pollution can be disturbing enough to impact their health. For children, the damage from chronic exposure to noise pollution can be much more profound.

Hydraulic fracturing can be a noisy venture, but what is it exactly that causes such a din, and what can be done to prevent it from hindering fracking efforts?

The procurement, transportation, storage, and deployment of sound blankets can be a chore, which you’ll already know if you’ve ever had to treat a site or piece of machinery with big barriers and blankets.

Now, it doesn't have to be.

Some parts of the world are already swinging away, trying to knock the issue of noise pollution on the head, while others remain trailing. This legitimate public health concern is on the rise globally, and we are trying to play catch-up to subdue the harsh toll it is taking on our population.

Fracking has been around for quite a while — since 1949 to be exact. However, it wasn't until more recently that U.S. engineers made fracking more economically viable.

While it isn't a new technique, the widespread use of it is something new and its practice needs to be critically examined to ensure that it is safe and environmentally sound.

Here are a few of the pros and cons of fracking, and what we can do to mitigate some of the issues surrounding it.

A problem…

You’re underway on a big new job, and everything’s coming out the gates like clockwork. Deliverables are being met, the site is in order, and everybody’s working hard.

But there’s just one thing:

You’ve got a lot of machines. And they’re making a lot of noise.

Fracking is a contentious issue in the United States but few states have officially banned it — only three in fact. New York State is one of them, where fracking was banned by mayor Andrew Cuomo in 2015.

Here is a brief history of how the New York fracking ban came to be.