Peak Oil is You
Donate Bitcoins ;-) or Paypal :-)
Page added on September 15, 2014
The Consequences Of Fracking: Two Clashing Views
Two academic studies of the health dangers of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, have produced different conclusions.
One, conducted by Yale University, said people living near fracking sites report increased health problems. The other, by Penn State University, says fracking water stays underground, far below the groundwater supplies that people use for drinking, and poses no threat.
Both studies were conducted in Pennsylvania, part of the Marcellus Shale formation in the sprawling Appalachian Basin in the eastern United States. It holds enormous reserves of gas and has been a focus of fracking activity and protests.
In the Yale study, former Yale medical professor Dr. Peter Rabinowitz reported in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives that residents living near a fracking site in southwestern Pennsylvania were more than twice as likely to report skin problems and respiratory illnesses than those living farther away.
Rabinowitz, now at Pennsylvania’s University of Washington, surveyed 492 people in 180 households in Washington County, PA — the heart of the Marcellus Shale. Thirty-nine percent of respondents living within 0.6 of a mile of a gas well reported sinus infections and nosebleeds, compared with 18 percent who said the same and lived more than twice as far away.
The difference was even starker for those reporting skin problems: Thirteen percent reported rashes, while only 3 percent of people who lived farther away had the same complaints.
Rabinowitz said his is “the largest study to date” of its kind. But he cautioned that he isn’t directly linking fracking to the health problems. To determine that will require more research, he said, because “it’s more of an association than a causation.”
The Penn State study concluded that the water and chemicals that are injected into deep shale to help extract gas stays far below the surface and therefore doesn’t pose a serious threat to drinking water supplies.
The study, whose results were published in the Journal of Unconventional Oil and Gas Resources, was conducted by Terry Engelder, professor of geosciences at Penn State; Lawrence Cathles, professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University; and Taras Bryndzia, a geologist at Shell International Exploration and Production, Inc.
Opponents of fracking say the contaminated water used to help extract the gas could seep toward the surface and foul clean groundwater. The Penn State study says this isn’t likely because the water would seep up too slowly, if it seeped at all.
Further, it says, upward migration of tainted water isn’t plausible because of the forces used to inject the water into the shale. “As water is wicked into gas shale, the natural gas in the shale is pushed out, Engelder says. “The capillary forces that suck the [water] into the gas shale keep it there.”
The debate continues.
6 Comments on "The Consequences Of Fracking: Two Clashing Views"
GregT on Mon, 15th Sep 2014 7:53 pm
The article fails to mention the third, and most important view.
Anthropogenic Global Warming.
Get people arguing over groundwater contamination, and maybe, just maybe, they’ll forget about what is arguably the most serious threat to mankind, and all life on earth, that we have ever faced.
SilentRunning on Mon, 15th Sep 2014 8:27 pm
Classic FUD campaign by fracking industry
Right out of the tobacco industry play book. When studies from medical researchers started coming out with correlation between smoking & cancer – the tobacco companies started paying doctors to trumpet the positive health effects of smoking. “9 out of 10 doctors smoke Lucky Strikes”. etc
SilentRunning on Mon, 15th Sep 2014 8:36 pm
BTW: On Planet Ideal, all the geological layers have no faults. The well drilling crews have perfect knowledge of strata. The cement used to seal well bores is flawless, and lasts indefinitely. There are never old, decaying earlier well bores that could leak super high pressure fluid back up to the water table.
Fracking is a fine, safe technology on Planet Ideal. Because the fracking takes place “way down there” and the chemicals – millions of gallons of them – injected at 10s of thousands of PSI – do in fact stay way down there.
Here on Planet Earth, on the other hand… I remember a study from Cornell that shows that over 50% of all well cement jobs eventually fail.
Perk Earl on Mon, 15th Sep 2014 9:20 pm
Are there also two camps as to what is catching on fire coming out of that faucet and what that source originated from?
drwater on Mon, 15th Sep 2014 10:44 pm
The two studies are not contradictory. The health impacts from fracking are due to the air pollution. All those aromatic hydrocarbons that come back with the water get volatilized if kept in open holding ponds.
ghung on Tue, 16th Sep 2014 7:12 am
The debate over this issue is going into high gear, here in NC, now that the State’s “Energy Modernization Act” has come to reality. Virtually no protections for property owners, and local jurisdictions are largely excluded from having a say in the process. Our district’s first term (Rep.) State Senator is a cosponsor of the bill. The newly created ‘Mining Commission’ is to include three appointees “who is a representative of the mining industry.”. Seven voting members, including two members “who is a representative of nongovernmental conservation interests” who are appointed by the Republican controlled General Assembly. No word on who qualifies as a ‘representative of nongovernmental conservation interests’. Read our new law here:
h ttp://www.ncga.state.nc.us/Sessions/2013/Bills/Senate/PDF/S786v2.pdf