On Tuesday, a professor from Clemson University presented both sides of an increasingly heated debate about whether hydraulic fracturing should be used to access underground natural gas.

Larry Murdoch, a professor in the department of environmental engineering and earth science, spoke at the School of Social Work. He said that while hydraulic fracturing, commonly called “fracking,” could bring new jobs to North Carolina, increase tax revenue and economically benefit landowners, it could also pose risks to the state’s water, air and soil.

Fracking is a process in which energy companies extract natural gas by pumping a high-pressure mixture of water, sand and chemicals through a pipe into shale formations deep underground. This causes the rock to crack open and release natural gas that is locked in tiny pores inside the shale, allowing companies to pipe the gas to the surface.

The Cumnock Formation, which lies in Chatham and Lee counties, is expected to hold a significant amount of natural gas. Murdoch estimates that this formation could hold between $0.2 billion and $5 billion  of natural gas.

“There need to be studies done to know how much gas there is,” Murdoch said, “and we need to know what that economic impact would be in North Carolina, and then we need to know what the environmental impact would be.”

Murdoch said a principal environmental issue associated with fracking is what to do with the four million gallons of contaminated water left over after each fracking stage. The water can contain metals, salt and radioactive material from deep underground, he said.

In other states, contaminated water has ended up in rivers after sewage treatment facilities were unable to treat it. In some cases, the water was injected deep into the ground, which was believed to have caused earthquakes in several instances, Murdoch said. Environmentally friendly techniques to treat this water and reuse it in fracking wells are being developed, he said.

Fracking has also been associated with water contamination that can occur when gas leaks out of pipes as it is pumped to the surface, Murdoch said. In some cases, methane pockets have built up underground. When these pockets intersected with drinking water wells, people in some states have been able to light their faucets with a match.

According to Haw Riverkeeper Elaine Chiosso, executive director of the Haw River Assembly, chemicals mixed with water injected into fracking wells can evaporate, causing air pollution.

State Geologist Jim Simons, director of the North Carolina Division of Land Resources, said he hoped that environmentally friendly fracking fluids would be developed. “I’m sure it’s feasible,” he said.

An environmental protection group called Croatan Earth First turned out to protest the event by handing out flyers opposing fracking.

Murdoch developed techniques to clean contaminated land by flushing liquid through underground cracks created through the process of hydraulic fracturing.