I completely agree with the lecturer about the positive and negative effects the gold rush had on California. Although the gold rush did bring great things such as opportunities, industry, and entrepreneurship, it also made a huge negative impact on the environment. Hydraulic mining is the method using high-pressured amounts of water to dislodge gold and move sediment. It was a very popular method, but it was very damaging to the environment. For example, it damaged and destroyed large amounts of land around the area, and used larger amounts of water. This is similar to hydraulic fracturing, a method used since the late 1940s where, “ a vertical well shaft hits a layer of shale, chemically treated water and sand are blasted down at high pressure
