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Report: Fracking Could Cause a New Global Water Crisis
“Does the rest of the world want to live this nightmare?”
As the oil and gas industry heads more towards hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, to access resources, a new report out today from Food & Water Watch states that the process may become a global environmental and public health threat. Numerous communities in the U.S. where fracking has occurred have suffered long-term damage to their public water, as gas and oil companies leave a legacy of carcinogens and climate damage in their wake. The group says that the worldwide community must heed the warnings out of stricken communities in the U.S. and ban the practice.
Wenonah Hauter, Executive Director of Food & Water Watch, states:
(photo: JustinWoolford)
“Fracking is a dangerous American export that should be viewed critically by countries just starting to engage in the practice. Modern drilling and fracking have caused widespread environmental and public health problems, as well as posed serious, long-term risks to vital water resources.”
“While the oil and gas industry is profiting off of this technology, it has been a disaster for Americans exposed to its pollution. They have dealt with everything from mysterious ailments likely caused by hazardous air pollution to well water contamination that has left rural communities unable to use their water for washing, brushing their teeth or cooking—much less drinking,” adds Hauter. “Does the rest of the world want to live this nightmare?”
Numerous communities where fracking has occurred in the U.S. have had their public water resources contaminated as a result of fracking. One community the report highlights is Dimock, Pennsylvania:
In 2009, Pennsylvania regulators ordered the Cabot Oil and Gas Corporation to cease all fracking in Susquehanna County after three spills at one well within a week polluted a wetland and caused a fishkill in a local creek. The spills leaked 8,420 gallons of fracking fluid containing a Halliburton-manufactured lubricant that is a potential carcinogen. Fracking had so polluted water wells that some families could no longer drink from their taps. Pennsylvania fined Cabot more than $240,000, but it cost more than $10 million to transport safe water to the affected homeowners. In December 2010, Cabot paid $4.1 million to 19 families that contended that Cabot’s fracking had contaminated their groundwater with methane. In 2012, the U.S. EPA began providing clean drinking water to these families after Cabot had been released of its obligation to do so by the state of Pennsylvania.
Fracking pollution hasn't been limited to water; it has also caused air pollution near fracking sites, the report states:
Hazardous air pollutants found near fracking sites include methanol, formaldehyde and carbon disulfide. Volatile organic compounds, including nitrogen oxides, benzene and toluene, are also discharged during fracking. These compounds mix with emissions from heavy-duty truck traffic, large generators and compressors at well sites to form ground-level ozone that can, in turn, combine with particulate matter to form smog. [...]
In Wyoming, drilling and fracking have caused ground-level ozone pollution to exceed amounts recorded in Los Angeles, affecting the quality of life for Wyoming residents.
Methane, a key greenhouse gas, is also implicated in fracking, showing that heading towards fracking means heading toward more climate change:
Recent scientific studies have demonstrated that, due to the amount of fugitive methane released during modern shale gas development as compared to during conventional gas development, any increased use of shale gas instead of coal may actually accelerate climate change in the coming decades, not reduce climate change impacts.
Food & Water Watch shows that the natural gas and oil industry have had their eyes worldwide to expand fracking, with some countries showing tremendous resistance to it:
[C]ountries around the world are grappling with how to address the push to drill and frack. In Europe, while France and Bulgaria have banned fracking in the face of strong public opposition, Poland has welcomed the industry. In China and Argentina, shale gas extraction is being developed with government support. In South Africa, pending an environmental review, a subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell may be granted permission to extract shale gas.
These countries would be wise, Food & Watch believes, to learn the lessons of communities in the U.S. that have had their water and environment damaged by fracking.
The report concludes:
Taken together, spills of toxic fracking fluid and fracking wastewater, water well contamination from the underground migration of methane and toxic fracking fluid, local and regional air pollution problems from shale development, explosions at the sites of shale wells, and substantial emissions of the global warming pollutant methane during drilling and fracking make the dangers of shale development clear.
Countries not yet exposed to the risks and costs of drilling and fracking have an opportunity to choose a different path, one that “meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” Enacting a national ban on fracking and investing in the deployment of energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies will set a sustainable course.
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81 Comments so far
Show AllMy name is on the table freely. Put yours there if have the courage.
This suggests you are using a software package that monitors such topics and alerts spokes people for these industries when a topic such as this comes up on a Public forum.
You then come pre-armed with your links and data provided to you by the same industry that has a stake in ensuring fracking goes ahead without regulation.
Now you can certainly prove me wrong and show me posts you made on Common dreams related to all those other issues but until then it my opinion you are a shill for the industry you are promoting.
You already admit you just signed up HERE today for the purpose of attacking THIS article alone.
Why should anyone "trust you"?
Now if you really did not care what i thought, you would not have responded nor would you have defended yourself by suggesting your information can not be rebutted.
It has been.
I need not need point out the rebuttals to you because I am not interested in debating an industry shill. Others I know here are free to ask my opinions on the matter and my own sources.
We have your like coming here who only post when there an article on Nuclear power. They have no interest in any other topic but come here with cut and pastes suggesting Radiation is not a health risk. There is simply no point in debating people who are clearly paid by industry to post in favor of said industry.
Someone who is trying to sell a product really has no interest in the truth. If they want to sell the Military something like "Agent Orange" they are only going to provide Data that suggests "Agent Orange" safe enough to bathe in.
And no you still do not warrant any trust. I have found that people that preface a statement with "trust me" are the least trustworthy or they would not have to ask for it all the time.
Why would cabot Oil and Gas agree to fines of 30000 a month for having contaminated the well water of some 15 households with methane if said practices can not contaminate well water?
Are you in that group that think there too much regulation and that the EPA and other regulatory agencies should be disbanded as advocated by one Ron Paul?
Do you feel the Oil spill in the Gulf Of Mexico was due to too much regulation or that it had no negative effects on the environment?
Do you feel that incidents like Love Canal was due to too much regulation or that the Cuyahoga River bursting into flame was a "natural event" and had nothing to do with Industry ?
The incidents of cancer in the population has increased steadily since WW2. Do you think this just a natural event or that it made worse by regulations on industry?
During the time of Dickens coal dust coated the homes and streets in London and there was a great increase in all manner of diseases of the lungs. The Coal industry insisted it had nothing to do with them. Is it your contenton that regulations on the location of coal plants and how it was handled and burned in homes for heat was something that added unwarranted costs and cost jobs?
Do you really believe the Wall Street Journal and the Financial times have NO vested interest in promoting the Hydrocarbon industry? Over 90 percent of the WSJ articles supported the war on Iraq claiming that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Indeed one Kudlow even wrote that the USA should support the war on Iraq because it would be Good for Business and good for the Stock Market.
These are magazines of Business that SUPPORT business. Why would they promote articles that asked for regulations on business?
The Universities of Texas and of Oklahoma both recieve millions in funding from the Oil industry. Do you really believe that these donations have NO bearing on the Science that is done by the same?
If T Boone Pickens as example was heavily invested in the Natural Gas Industry and donated 200 million to the University of Oklahoma, do you really feel said University would come out with studies showing how it harmful to the Environment and should be curtailed?
Your cited sources are all compromised. Koch Industries, Exxon and other Corporations have actively invested many millions of dollars in promoting their industry. They do this not because they are interested in the facts or in the health of the people and the environment but because they are interested in maximizing profits.
They are not reliable sources of information, nor are the people they hire to speak on their behalf.
This is poor logic as we need to breathe in order to live just as we need to defecate. We do not NEED to use fracking to obtain natural gas. We only do that because certain companies profit off the practice.
My reference to the Cuyahoga River was in response to your suggestion that REGULATIONS are costing us jobs and quality of life. You yourself made that point.
In order to understand the position you were taking on fracking, it is important to understand your position on Government regulations on Industry as they are directly linked.
You then through in the "as long as it handled properly" into your arguments when most people are are well aware the Industry does not do things properly and WILL not without regulations as they will always seek to maximize profits. I would point just as example that the disposal of Nuclear waste was not handled properly at Hanford. That now costs the taxpayers more in cleanup then the so called "wealth" created by the prescence of hanford.
Hanford is certainly not the only excample of that. There are superfund sites across the United States of America that will cost the tax payers 10s of billions to clean up. meanwhile the companies that profited off the same are long since gone.
Back to Cabot Oil and Gas. The well casing was NEEDED because methane DOES migrate. Those who are concerned about fracking are concerned about methane migration. You now acknowledge it happens unless the flow of gas is containeed in cement casing yet still insist it can not happen if the rock around the gas is fractured. I do not find this as consistent. it like the Nuclear industry proponents claming No one ever died from the Chernobyl meltdown , tring to pretend that Radiation leaked out that spread across a vast area was somehow a seperate event. It a dishonest argument but par for the course with industry shills.
Any reasonable person would insist on more study before allowing fracking in populated areas where people rely on that same ground water.
Now it only logical and reasonable that people measure the costs of fracking BEFORE the industry involved in the same has more cases of "not handling it properly" so that they can either pass regulations to make sure such occurs or ban the practice outright so as to ensure they as taxpayers are not paying for the costs of cleanup or ill health years in the future.
You had better get a lot more popcorn and Koch because you are not going to gain any traction here with your miserable attempts at defending fracking. You are quick to anger and cherry pick data as it suits you. When called on your incorrect assertions you resort to the most meaningless of arguments.
With concerns mounting that injection wells from natural gas fracking are causing earthquakes and contaminating groundwater, Vermonters appear ready to stop the practice in the state before it starts.
On the heels of a 4.0 magnitude earthquake in Youngstown, Ohio this past New Year’s Eve, and a growing number of reports from around the U.S. that fracking operations have fouled water supplies, the Vermont legislature is considering either a moratorium or complete ban of fracking within its borders.
In January, the House Water Resources committee approved a bill that would put a three-year moratorium on fracking in Vermont.
If Vermont goes further and actually bans fracking, it would be the first state to do so. Neighboring New York State, which sits on top of the Marcellus Shale formation, approved a moratorium in 2010 in order to assess the environmental impact of drilling. Last year, France became the first country to ban the practice entirely.
Measurable seismic activity around fracking injection wells has also added to concerns. From Oklahoma to the United Kingdom, earthquakes ranging from 1.0 to 4.0 on the Richter scale have been recorded near fracking sites. While these small earthquakes have not caused structural damage (only annoyance to people living around the wells), Arthur McGarr, geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, has warned that the risk of anthropogenically inducing large, deadly quakes cannot be ruled out.