Are you familiar with the term hydraulic-fracturing, better known as fracking? If you’re not from an area where the practice is happening (or in imminent danger of it happening) probably not. If you like your drinking water though, you should be.

Fracking, according to frackaction.com, is a “method of natural gas extraction. It entails drilling deep underground into shale deposits and blasting millions of gallons of water laced with sand and hundreds of toxics chemicals at high pressure to break apart the shale to release methane (natural gas). It has been linked to well over a thousand cases of groundwater contamination across the United States. Also common from the practice is surface water contamination, significant air quality problems, public health catastrophes, economic losses to communities, and a host of other problems.”

Basically a company comes in to your neighborhood with the promise of getting natural gas from deep in the ground, pumps dangerous chemicals in to the water supply which then contaminate your water supply. Those chemicals also contaminate your food and beer because you can’t grow food or make beer without water! Because of this a number of chefs, including my man Mario Batali) and brewers have become vocal critics of the practice.

Last week I attended a fantastic event called Save Our Beer. The event was hosted by Environmental Advocates of New York, New York Water Rangers and other concerned groups at Brooklyn Brewery. It was both informative and great fun.

I love my beer. Seriously, beer and wine are two of the few things that I love as much as food. I’m blessed to live in a state where I have an abundance of amazing local food and lots of amazing breweries and I don’t want that to change any time soon. I don’t want those chemicals in my beer or my food and I certainly don’t want them in my body!

If you love your beer as much as I do, or at least your food and water, contact your legislators demand higher standards in the natural gas industry and let them know that you will not be fracked with!

To learn more here’s a recent piece from 60 Minutes I’d suggest watching.