Now We Know Fracking Is Making People Sick

Well, many of our fears about fracking have been confirmed as the largest study to date of the link between natural gas drilling and public health shows that those forlorn folks living near fracking sites and relying on well water are more than twice as likely to report skin and respiratory problems. But this shouldn't be news given the hundreds of nasty chemical toxins used in fracking, including toluene, benzene and other carcinogens.

The study, from Yale University and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, surveyed 492 people living in 180 randomly selected households in southwestern Pennsylvania, an area containing more than 600 active natural gas wells. A full 39 percent of those living less than a kilometer (0.6 miles) away from a well, researchers found, said they’d experienced upper respiratory symptoms, including coughing, itchy eyes and nosebleeds, compared to 18 percent living 2 kilometers away or more. And 13 percent of those living close to wells reported skin conditions like persistent rashes and unexplained hair loss, compared to just 3 percent of the others.

The researchers have asserted that they are only reporting on the correlation so they can’t say whether fracking caused these symptoms.   Nor could they be more specific about what mechanism might have been at play. Drawing on past research, they say it’s possible that fracking is contaminating underground wells or causing air pollution, but it could also be that "the symptoms are just being caused by the stress and anxiety associated with living near major drilling operations — or by something else entirely."

This take, however, is hardly plausible given the first hand visual evidence seen, for example, in Josh Fox's Gasland II and the evidence we now have from Colorado investigations revealing that soil, air and ground water have been contaminated. The psychological proximity theory is also bollocks, given all those cases of animals that have died horrific deaths from drinking fracked water - leading their owners to have to send in hundreds of gallons of bottled water for their use too.

Ok, so it’s not a smoking gun and the evidence is primarily anecdotal but it still counts for something.  We also know, predictably, that diehard fracking supporters have been quick to underplay the findings. Enter PR misfit Katie Brown, spokesperson for the pro-drilling Energy in Depth, who asserted after the new results that it’s “just a poll.”

But this is typical dismissive PR reaction such as noted in the terrific anti-PR book by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton, Toxic Sludge Is Good For You.

In the book, people who have been the recipients of toxic sludge -based fertilizers,  replete with hundreds of chemicals,  were asked about ill effects and they detailed them. However, the PR industry backing the fertilizer manufacturers argued that the people are wrong because it's "just a poll" and besides,  this toxic sludge was great for crops.  Never mind the vomiting, breakouts in rashes and convulsions, which could also be just in their minds. (They saw and smelled the sludge fertilizer and it induced a violent psychological reaction.)

So it's definitely uncanny to behold the parallels to what the pro-fracking PR hacks say here.

The Yale researchers also take care to note that their findings are consistent with earlier studies of these same health symptoms, including those reported by Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald. Bamberger, a veterinarian, and Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell,  recently explained to Salon that industry secrecy and lax regulations made it difficult to prove a definitive link between fracking and health symptoms. In some states, for example, it's against the law to disclose the content of fracking liquids - though it seems to be ok for a Neoliberal gubernator assholes like John Hickenlooper to drink them to show "they're okay" . It is also against the law in many fracking states for physicians to run tests for the presence of fracking chemicals causing adverse health effects and to disclose them to patients.

Given this Neoliberal foreclosure of evidence, the so-called polls and surveys (such as those made by the Yale researchers in the recent study) assume supreme importance in exposing what these turkeys are doing to us - along with documentaries like Gasland I and II. Let's keep in mind the PR factories will never tolerate the truth, as in the case of anthropogenic global warming, so we must always expect their egregious and reckless counter attacks.

In Pennsylvania, where drilling has exploded in the past six years, whistle-blowers recently accused the state Department of Health of deliberately ignoring health complaints. Critics added that the state has yet to conduct even one study on fracking’s potential health risks.  We want to make sure people know it’s a preliminary study,” lead author Peter Rabinowitz told the New Haven Register, adding, “to me it strongly indicates the need to further investigate the situation and not ignore it.”

But you may be sure these fracking maniacs and their paid off pols won't be put off. They are determined to poison us all for a temporary profit - for energy, fuels likely not even to be used in the U.S. but shipped to China or other places that will pay top dollar.

Despicable! To see the partial list of the chemicals exposed in fracking liquids thanks to the work of those like Colorado Sen. Dianne Dégette, check out the list below:

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 Benzene: a powerful bone-marrow poison (aplastic anemia) associated with leukemia, breast and uterine cancer
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- Styrene, which may cause eye and mucous membrane irritation, neurotoxic effects in the central and peripheral nervous systems.

- Toluene, which may cause muscular incoordination, tremors, hearing loss, dizziness, vertigo, emotional instability and delusions, liver and kidney damage, and anemia.

- Xylene, with cancer-causing (mainly in the kidneys, liver) and neurotoxic effects, as well as reproductive abnormalities.

- Methylene chloride, which may cause cancer, liver and kidney damage, central nervous system disorders and COPD.

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Now that this new study is circulating we need to come down even harder on the frackers and that means no longer buying into their codswallop.  They must be made also to conform to the precautionary principle, meaning they must prove fracking is safe - it's not our duty or job to prove it's unsafe!
 

Now Fracking Pollutes the Soil As Well As Water

The news in the Sunday Denver Post (1B) that 200 gallons of toxic effluent spills per day on Colorado soil from fracking, should not have blown anyone’s mind. Indeed, we already knew the multifold ways in which fracking contaminates the air and water. But that it is allowed to flow into fertile soil, thereby leaching into ground water too is an added abomination.

Although some PR guys claim it is “safe” – most of us don’t buy it. According to Matt Lepore, head of the “Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission” (basically a PR cover for the oil industry):

"The whole point is that it is safe, that the harm to the environment has been minimized.”

 He was referring to the industry’s latest cleanup method of using mixing machinery and microbes on the affected soil.  But as the Post observes: “It is not proven”.

 In other words we have only the industry’s-  excuse me, their front organization’s – words to go by. But given they are mainly devoted to the articulation of PR can we trust them?

 The Post expose found that 716,982 gallons of the petroleum chemicals spilled during the past decade have stayed in the ground after the initial cleanup. This has contaminated soil, sometimes spreading into groundwater- based on a Denver Post analysis of COGOC data. Incredibly, their maestro had the never to say the cleanup method was “safe” despite the Post finding the stuff is invading the soil, groundwater.  According to the Post (ibid.):

“There’s about one gallon of toxic liquid penetrating soil every eight minutes.”

In addition, the Post notes: “drillers churn up 135 to 500 tons of dirt with every new well, some of it soaked with hydrocarbons and laced with potentially toxic minerals and salts.”

Given this, is it any wonder adults – kids living near frack sites often have severe health complaints, ranging from horrific rashes to bleeding orifices to breathing problems? According to Eugene Kelly, chief of soil and crop science at Colorado State University – quoted in the piece:

“The overall impact of the oil and gas boom is like a death sentence for soil. It could be the next limiting component when we talk about feeding the planet and having a sustainable lifestyle- - because all the good stuff is gone and the soil is being degraded.”

Most citizens, including here in Colorado, have no remote idea how fast, far and wide the fracking craze is expanding.  According to the Post (p. 2B):

“3,000 new wells are drilled each year, adding to the nearly 52,000 active wells statewide.”

Most of this is done in agricultural areas northeast of Denver. In other words, we are sacrificing our 'bread basket'  for oil, natural gas. I’d say we’re sacrificing our water and health for oil –natural gas too.   No wonder groceries are already 50-70% more expensive than they were last year. Between the frackers' consumption of limited water in drought conditions, and their fouling of fertile soil, what would you expect?

Yet every time I turn on the tube now I hear and see one political whore or other insisting we “must become energy independent”.  The question I’d like to pose these poltroons is:

“Look, you want to be energy independent, or you do want to live? You can't have both! If we become energy independent so much carbon will be removed from the Earth and injected into the atmosphere that the runaway greenhouse effect will be triggered and we're all gone in 200 years.....or less.”

 Meanwhile, the Post’s examination of data found that the number of spills reached an all time record last year at 578 (according to the COGOC data).  In addition:

“State data also show that 12.3 percent of the past 1,000 spills (since June 24, 2012) already had contaminated groundwater before companies began cleanups.”

Beyond the contamination of soil and groundwater, the Post's data analysis showed that drilling of new wells unearthed an estimated 652,000 tons a year of sludge-like drill cuttings. These are supposed to be taken to special landfills but more often than not  spread them instead on “leased fields”.

 Naturally, the industry would rather look for short cuts given the costs to haul and bury ruined soil, which can require hundreds of truck to carry away – not to mention labor and landfill fees. The Post then cited just the volume created after the March, 2013 Parachute Creek spill in western Colorado.  It notes:

“The Williams and Bargath companies recovered 11,800 gallons of liquid hydrocarbons. They’ve excavated 2, 275 tons of contaminated soil, hauling it for burial at the ECDC facility in Utah.”

Process the dimensions and scale of this filth, polluting our landscape and the need to haul ever more away as the existing landfills grow into mountains.  It seems that Jared Polis’ idea of brining a ballot measure in for November – to allow communities to decide whether to allow fracking and how to regulate it- is more needed than ever.

Another urgent reason to allow this is the recent news (Denver Post, May 8, 1A) that scientists have found that Colorado's front Range oil and gas boom has been emitting three times more methane than previously thought. The rate, at 19.3 tons an HOUR. This is serious given the EPA has determined methane is 20 time more potent (i.e. higher forcing component) than CO2.   This study was done at the National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration's Cooperative Institute for Research on the Environment.

The NOAA scientists also measured industry emissions of cancer -causing benzene and smog forming organic compounds at levels seven times higher than government agencies originally estimated.

Polis, like many of us, understands that if something isn’t done soon, the entire country will be turned into one giant, diseased shit pile.  Oh, excuse me, except for the rarefied and isolated one percent – ensconced in their high mountain redoubts far from the stink, fiery drinking water and cancers that the rest of us “little guys” will have to bear.

All for energy independence!