Rather, as a consequence of injecting water and sand into the shale formation to crack the rocks so gas and oil will flow, massive amounts of waste water comes back to the surface with significant amounts of contaminants as a result of leaching out salt, heavy metals and trace amounts of radioactive materials from the rock formation itself.

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At these depths, everything must be done with remote-control robots that install the blowout preventers, submersible pumps and other devices to manage the flow of oil and water on the ocean floor.

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There are some systems that actually will take a circle and drop it just below the surface of the water and have the oil kind of flow into it, almost like a drain, recover it and pump it out.

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Now, even though refined plans show an alternate route, environmentalists worry that if the expected 500, 000 to 700, 000 barrels of crude oil flow through the pipeline each day, leaks could contaminate the water and soil.

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