New Study: Severe Health Impact of Fracking

By Bernhard Debatin

A new study on the Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health (*)shows that fracking fluids, methane gas exposure, and other gas-drilling related contamination can have a serious impact on the health of both humans and animals. The study, conducted by private practice veterinarian Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald of the Department of Molecular Medicine at Cornell University, investigated 24 different sites with gas wells, 18 of which were horizontal hydro-fractured wells. The researchers observed and documented severe changes in health of both humans and animals living close to these sites. The majority of the observed animals were cows; other animals included horses, goats, llamas, chickens, dogs, cats, and koi.

Bamberger and Oswald interviewed animal owners affected by gas drilling in six different states (Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Texas). In addition, they obtained lab test results and data from drilling companies and state regulatory agencies. The most striking finding of the study is the death of over 100 cows, caused by their exposure to fracking fluids or drinking of fracking wastewater that was dumped or leaked into freshwater sources. The researchers also frequently found reproductive problems, particularly lack of breeding and stillborn animals, often with congenital deformations. Other health effects on both animals and humans encompassed a wide range of symptoms, such as upper respiratory symptoms and burning of the eyes,  vomiting and diarrhea, rashes, nosebleeds, headaches, and neurological problems.

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Fracking Moratorium Urged as Doctors Call for Health Study

The U.S. should declare a moratorium on hydraulic
fracturing for natural gas in populated areas until the health effects are
better understood, doctors said at a conference on the drilling process.

Gas producers should set up a foundation to finance studies on fracking
and independent research is also needed, said Jerome Paulson, a
pediatrician at George Washington University School of Medicine in
Washington.

 Top independent producers include Chesapeake Energy Corp. and
Devon Energy Corp., both of Oklahoma City, and Encana Corp. of Calgary,
according to Bloomberg Industries.

 "We've got to push the pause button,
and maybe we've got to push the stop button" on fracking, said Adam Law,
an endocrinologist at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York, in an
interview at a conference in Arlington, Virginia that's the first to
examine criteria for studying the process.

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Balance still is key to drilling in Ohio

The issue: Earthquakes near injection well in Youngstown
Our view: Good science, effective regulation are critical

The economic potential of oil and gas drilling in Ohio is too big to neglect. So is the potential downside of storing wastewater from the drilling process in some deep injection wells.

Ohio has to find and maintain a balance that encourages drilling and protects the public. This will occur by relying on good science and maintaining effective government regulation and oversight.

The incidence of minor earthquakes near an injection well in Youngstown has rightly focused the attention of state officials and residents on the end result of drilling.

Millions of gallons of wastewater may be going into some wells that are not geologically compatible with storage of this brine. It may not be safe to do so, and the Department of Natural Resources has taken the only sensible precaution. It has shut down the well near the epicenter of the quakes and others within a five-mile radius until officials understand the situation.

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Fracking Nonsense: The Job Myth of Gas Drilling

Written by Helene Jorgensen   

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/blogs/cepr-blog/fracking-nonsense-the-job-myth-of-gas-drilling

Natural gas companies are trying to sell fracking as the solution to all of the economic ills ailing this country.  Supposedly fracking can bring the economy out of its current stagnation by creating uncountable new jobs, without running up government deficits, and even save us from global warming in the process.  So how come local residents and environmentalists oppose fracking? The short answer is that fracking does not create local jobs, it lowers property values, and pollutes the water we drink and the air we breathe.

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking for short, is drilling for gas buried more than a mile under ground in hard rock layers. In order to extract the gas, a toxic cocktail of chemicals is pumped deep into the ground to fracture the rock. In recent years, the state of Pennsylvania has embraced the fracking boom and more than 4,500 wells have been drilled there since 2007. The state of New York has taken a more prudent approach by implementing a moratorium until the environmental and economic effects have been evaluated. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation is currently seeking public comments on the issue (deadline January 11).

In an intensive lobbying campaign to influence a skeptical public’s opinions about fracking, the gas industry has commissioned a number of economic studies that find huge job gains from fracking. A recent study by the economic forecasting company IHS Global Insight Inc., paid for by the America’s Natural Gas Alliance, projects that fracking will create 1.1 million jobs in the United States by year 2020. However, a closer read of the study reveals that the analysis also projects that fracking will actually lead to widespread job losses in other sectors of the economy, and would result in slightly lower overall employment levels the following 10 years, compared to what it would be if fracking were restricted. In another study, commissioned by the Marcellus Shale Coalition, researchers with Penn State University estimated that gas drilling would support 216,000 jobs in Pennsylvania alone by 2015. The most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show employment in the oil and gas industry to be 4,144 in Pennsylvania.

Rather than trying to project what will happen in the future, one could look at what the employment impact has been from Pennsylvania’s love affair with fracking since 2007, using actual employment data readily available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.    http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/reports/exposing-the-oil-and-gas-industrys-false-jobs-promise/

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Oil, gas drillers thirsty for Valley's water

DOVER —

Large amounts of water are needed to drill oil and natural gas wells in the Tuscarawas Valley, and the Tuscarawas County Port Authority plans to provide it.

Starting Jan. 16, a stream of 5,500-gallon tanker trucks will begin flowing in and out of Oxford Street to the Reeves Mill Business Park. It also will be a revenue stream for the economic development agency, selling water for $7.50 per 1,000 gallons.

“We’re certainly pleased to cooperate with the oil and gas industry and provide this service located in about the geographic middle of the Utica shale play,” said Harry A. Eadon Jr., president and executive director of the Port Authority. “Being able to provide water for the company also should help attract more companies into Tuscarawas County.”

http://www.timesreporter.com/newsnow/x1707726989/Oil-gas-drillers-thirsty-for-Valleys-water

Fracking's challenges

The Kasich administration seems receptive to at least a modest increase in the tax, although it is reluctant to state how much. But Ohio's oil and gas industry is hot because of the reserves that have become available; a 5 percent severance tax would not dissuade producers. If Ohio fails to increase its severance tax on drillers, taxpayers will bear the burden of drilling's higher costs

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Fracking Well Catches Fire

Fracking has suffered some particularly bad PR over the past few months. First, the EPA linked the hydraulic fracturing drilling process (where a mix of water, sand and chemicals are blasted deep underground through horizontal wells to release oil and gas deposits) tocontamination of water in Wyoming. Then, on New Year’s Eve an intense earthquake struck Youngstown, Ohio. It was the eleventh quake since March, and seismologistslinked it to a deep well used for disposing fracking wastewater. State officials suspended the well, and the Mayor of Youngstown went so far as to buy earthquake insurance for his home.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/texas/2012/01/06/fracking-well-catches-fire/