A crowd of environmental activists came - uninvited - to a Democratic Party event in Springfield Wednesday. The hundred or so ralliers say Democrats failed them when the governor and members in the General Assembly pushed through legislation to allow hydraulic fracturing in Illinois last year.
The natural gas extraction process, often called fracking, uses highly pressurized water and chemicals to draw fuel from oil shale, deep underground.
But reports of earthquakes and polluted water and air where drilling has taken place have opponents worried about the practice in Illinois. Lora Chamberlain, with Frack-Free Illinois, says fracking is too risky to try here.
"The reps and senators and the governor have not done their homework. They don't understand the dangers of fracking that have been proven across the country."
But advocates of fracking refute those claims, saying natural disasters like earthquakes haven't been unequivocally linked to fracking. Plus, they say, the benefits outweigh the consequences - benefits like less reliance on coal, and potentially thousands of new jobs for southern Illinois.
Fracking advocates say the state has taken too long to finalize rules for fracking. By the time the Illinois Department of Natural Resources finishes the rules, in November, it will have been almost a year and a half since the law passed.
