Reply #4: Its short for Fracturing the rock to allow movement of gas or liquid [View All]

[ThomWV]

Here's a layman's understanding for you. Its an old term and in fact its an old concept, though there are a number of ways to do it. In any event either you are pumping something down hole to do it chemically or you do it mechanically. In the first way you are by definition polluting the substrata, and if that includes the water table so be it (it also allows for migration of pollutants across stratas but any well does that). In the second event it allows pollutants to migrate - so they can go places they were blocked from going before, like the water table.