John Cook

The project begins in the United States looking at the impact and relationship that two wide spread farming methods have had on its landscape and resources; the traditional form of agricultural crop farming, and the more recent natural mineral farming known as Hydraulic Fracturing or ‘fracking’.

Surface farming verses subterranean mineral farming, both processes have developed and adapted their infrastructures over the American landscape for hundreds of years, and now with the introduction of modern mining and crop irrigation methods, the scale and strain on the United State’s water resources has begun to be felt. Coupled with the incredibly destructive soil and water contamination issues relating to Hydraulic Fracturing, thousands of miles of America’s grasslands have been left damaged beyond repair.

Focusing on an area known as ‘The Wattenberg Gas Field’ in Weld County, Colorado (one of the first shale deposits discovered in America suitable for fracking), my project looks to address both issues of wide spread drought within the farming landscape, and the heavily contaminated soil conditions that have begun to arise.