An organization has come out against fracking and wants to ban it in Maryland. Environment Maryland has released a report entitled "The Cost of Fracking" which says the process leads to millions of dollars in health care costs, and results in air pollution, ruined roads and contaminated properties. It's calling on the governor at and the legislature to prohibit the practice.

Tommy Landers, the Director of Environment Maryland, says this process causes a host of problems. "Spills of the fracking waste water, the fluid chemicals that come back up, and methane that is either leaked out of the surface or gets into residential wells and contaminates drinking water," he says.

Fracking involves drilling down to underground rock formations, and using chemicals, water and sand to extract natural gas or oil. It has been used in Pennsylvania and some neighboring states to remove natural gas from the Marcellus Shale, which runs through several Mid-Atlantic states, including Maryland.

Supporters say using this process to get natural gas and oil of the ground means the US won't have to rely on imported oil, and it could create jobs. But Landers isn't buying that argument. "I think it's a short term view, and whatever economic benefits will be greatly outweighed by the cost," he says.

Environment Maryland points to Dimock, Pennsylvania, where fracking operations contaminated drinking water wells of several households for three years or more. The organization says providing 14 families with temporary drinking water supplies cost more than $100,000, and bringing in a permanent water source would have cost an estimated $11.8-million.

In its report, the organization also says fracking operations in Fayetteville, Arkansas resulted in health care costs of $9.8-million for one year. In Texas's Barnett Shale Region, those health care costs reached $270,000 per day during the summer.

If it's allowed in Maryland, Landers says it could contaminate the Chesapeake Bay, which is already suffering from nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment that create "dead zones" during the summer. "Fracking disturbs a lot of land; it takes away forests, and these leaks get into tributaries of the Bay," he says. "We're already seeing a lot of pollution from Pennsylvania's fracking get into the Susquehanna {River}."

The report, "The Costs of Fracking," will come before the 2013 General Assembly Session, where bills are expected to be introduced to put a fracking ban in affect in Maryland.

"We already know about fracking's damage to our environment and health," says Landers in a statement. "These dollars and cents cost are one more reason to reject this dirty drilling practice."