I thought it might be useful to shed some light on this drilling process. I worked for an oil company for 15 years (and spent plenty of time sitting on wells), and my family has been in that business since I was born. Those are my credentials.
All I want to do here is explain the process a little, I have no axe to grind and I don't like pollution either.
First, drilling mud has nothing to do with frac'ing or literally "fracturing" called "fracking" in the media. Drilling mud is used during drilling for about 20 different reasons including lubricating and cooling the bit and applying a counter-pressure in the hole so it (hopefully) doesn't blow out.
The explosive charges mentioned, have nothing to do with drilling and nothing to do with frac'ing. The explosives are used when the well is being "completed" after the drilling is done, but before any possible frac'ing. After the well is drilled, if the company thinks it's going to produce something, they run some pipe into it called "casing", cement the casing in place. And then the drilling rig leaves.
Then another rig comes called a "service rig". This is a much smaller rig, and these folks usually work daylight hours only. The casing which has been cemented in place, has effectively sealed off the area which will hopefully produce oil or gas. The service rig folks use explosives to blow little holes in the wall of the casing and it's through these holes that the oil or gas flows. That's called perforating or perfing the well. BTW, working on a service rig is much more dangerous than working on a drilling rig, which is dangerous enough.
After another round of testing, the oil folks may decide that they don't think the well is producing enough or fast enough, so then they may "frac" the well. Frac'ing the well means they pump under very high pressure some secret liquid with some bits in it like sand or walnut shells or whatever into the well bore and it goes out into the rock formation. The bits of hard things in effect prop open the rock (they're called proppants) and sometimes that makes the well produce better.
Does oil well drilling cause seismic activity? Definitely. By its definition if you pump stuff into the rock you're causing changes under the ground. Is it going to cause a major earthquake? Probably not. The seismic activity that causes earthquakes is very deep inside the earth and most oil wells aren't. If oil wells are super deep (several miles) in an area where there is already naturally occurring heavy activity, then it's possible. Causing earthquakes is more probable where they are doing geothermal drilling, or drilling for steam, which are usually much deeper wells specifically targeted around areas of high activity under ground......Here's an
article in Scientific American about that. And here's
another one from the Wall Street Journal. I mention these because they are highly respected publications if you want to learn more.
I won't comment on any of the other stuff about pollution or junk coming out of faucets etc. except to say that drilling in general is much more tightly regulated in Canada which has pro's and con's.
I hope this helps.