Fracking and health effects

Fracking involves the use of chemicals that could contaminate water supplies and be harmful to human health. According to the International Journal of Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: Wastewater from fracking contains potentially toxic chemicals used in fracking fluid, as well as natural contaminants from deep underground, including total dissolved solids (e.g., salts, barium, strontium), organic pollutants (e.g., benzene, toluene) and normally occurring radioactive material (NORM) such as Radium 226.

Establishing a direct link between fracking and human health, though, has been complicated by a lack of information on the chemical substances used in the process (kept confidential as trade secrets) and the difficulty of obtaining health records that include residence data, and from there establishing a causal link to fracking.

The process of fracking also increases certain emissions and involves the use of large amounts of water that are removed from the hydrological cycle, aggravating the health risks of air pollution and water scarcity.

Fracking chemicals
According to a 2011 US Congressional report, 14 oil and gas companies used over 2,500 hydraulic fracturing products between 2005 and 2009, containing 750 chemicals and components, some extremely toxic and carcinogenic like lead and benzene. The chemicals tend to remain in the ground once the fracturing has been completed, raising fears about long-term contamination."

Congress requested disclosure of chemicals listed as proprietary products, but in most cases oil/gas companies stated they did not have access to proprietary information about products they purchased “off the shelf” from chemical suppliers.

Radiation
Fracking releases "produced water" from underground that rises to the surface and can contain naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM), as well as chemical additives used in drilling.

A February 2011 study in the NY Times, based upon thousands of internal documents obtained by The Times from the Environmental Protection Agency, state regulators, and drillers, found never-reported studies by the EPA and a confidential study by the drilling industry that both concluded that radioactivity in drilling waste cannot be fully diluted in rivers and other waterways. The Times found that of more than 179 wells producing wastewater with high levels of radiation, at least 116 reported levels of radium or other radioactive materials 100 times as high as the levels set by federal drinking-water standards. At least 15 wells produced wastewater carrying more than 1,000 times the amount of radioactive elements considered acceptable.

A November 2010 study of fracking's effect on radioactive material in the Marcellus Shale by Tracy Bank, a geologist at the State University of New York in Buffalo, found that the process that released the gas also releases uranium trapped in the shale. She said additional study is needed to understand and predict the reaction in the shale to fracking.

Fracking and infants
A 2014 study presented at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Philadelphia, the researchers looked at Pennsylvania birth records from 2004 to 2011 to assess the health of infants born within a 2.5-kilometer radius of natural-gas fracking sites. They found that proximity to fracking increased the likelihood of low birth weight by more than half, from about 5.6 percent to more than 9 percent. The study has yet to be peer-reviewed.

In a study of rural Colorado, the researchers observed an association between density and proximity of natural gas wells within a 10-mile radius of maternal residence and prevalence of congenital heart defects (CHDs) and neural tube defects (NTDs).

Air pollution
Carcinogens can evaporate from frack wastewater and become air pollutants. Much of the equipment used in the drilling, production, processing, and transporting of natural gas and oil releases significant amounts of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and nitrogen oxides (NOx), which combine in the presence of sunlight to form ground-level ozone, or “smog”, and particulate matter.

Gas- and oil-suffused bedrock contains many toxic hydrocarbons, some of them volatile gases. As soon as a hole is drilled into the formations, the fugitive native gases can escape, including benzene.

Studies on health effects

 * Gas Patch Roulette: How Shale Gas Development Risks Public Health in Pennsylvania, Earthworks, 2012.
 * Judi Krzyzanowski, Environmental pathways of potential impacts to human health from oil and gas development in northeast British Columbia, Canada, Environmental Reviews, June 2012.
 * Laura N. Vandenberg, Theo Colborn, Tyrone B. Hayes, Jerrold J. Heindel, David R. Jacobs, Jr., Duk-Hee Lee, Toshi Shioda, Ana M. Soto, Frederick S. vom Saal, Wade V. Welshons, R. Thomas Zoeller, and John Peterson Myers, Hormones and Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals: Low-Dose Effects and Nonmonotonic Dose Responses, Endocrine Reviews, June 2012 - Although the report doesn't specifically mention hydraulic fracturing, a separate peer-reviewed study released in September 2012 identified 649 chemicals used during natural gas production and found that at least 130 of those could affect the endocrine system. They include petroleum distillates, methanol and other, more obscure compounds with names like dibromoacetonitrile and ethoxylated nonylphenol.
 * Colborn, T.; Kwiatkowski, C.; Schultz, K., and Bachran, M., Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective, Human and Ecological Risk Assessment: an International Journal, September 2012, 17(5):1039-1056.
 * Michelle Bamberger and Robert E. Oswald, The Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health, New Solutions, Vol. 22(1) 51-77, 2012.
 * Ronald E. Bishop, Ph.D., CHO, Chemical and Biological Risk Assessment for Natural Gas Extraction in New York, State University of New York, March 28, 2011.

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