Many people in New York State have heard about high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, the unconventional natural gas drilling method better known as fracking. But, people may only know some of its dangers.
Fracking, including infrastructure such as pipelines and compressor stations, carries many risks: polluting air, poisoning land, and contaminating water and food. Evidence of risks and harms is growing so rapidly that Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) recently published a Compendium featuring hundreds of peer-reviewed studies and other findings.
Fracking releases numerous air pollutants, including methane–a potent greenhouse gas that is the main component of natural gas–benzene and other volatile organic compounds, and ground level ozone. These pollutants can lead to health impacts ranging from rashes, nausea, and nosebleeds; to respiratory and neurological problems; and even cancer. Ground level ozone threatens crops, risking economies of places like Minisink in New York’s Black Dirt Region, and New York’s food sovereignty.
Numerous studies show strong evidence of groundwater contamination. When water needed to drink, wash, cook, bathe, and water crops and livestock is contaminated with fracking chemicals–including many endocrine disruptors and carcinogens–it increases risks of reproductive, metabolic, and neurological disorders. Leaks, spills, blowouts, explosions, and other accidents further exacerbate these dangers.
Fewer people may know that fracking increases our exposure to radon, the second leading cause of lung cancer after smoking. The Marcellus Shale, the rock formation underneath New York and Pennsylvania that the gas industry wants to frack, has incredibly high levels of radioactivity including radon. Radon could travel with fracked gas in pipelines into homes, increasing the risk of lung cancer, especially among children.
Fracking leads to climate change. Massive amounts of the potent greenhouse gas methane–34 times more potent than carbon dioxide–leak throughout extraction, transportation, and storage of natural gas. Additionally, the entire fracking process is dependent on other fossil fuels for thousands of truck trips per well, and other machine operations. Climate change directly threatens us through dangerous, extreme weather and sea level rise. It affects us through changing temperatures, impacting growing seasons and limiting food crop growth –ultimately threatening our ability to feed ourselves. We must address fracking and climate change now. Get involved. Ask Governor Cuomo to ban fracking. Join the People’s Climate March in Manhattan on September 21.
Jessica Roff is the Downstate Regional Organizer of New Yorkers Against Fracking.
Kevin O'Neill says
Great to see this helpful info will be reaching directly into Governor Cuomo’s hometown mailbox on Bittersweet Lane. Thanks for getting this into the magazine, Grace! For those getting up to speed on fracking, please also search and study the massive #fracking gas infrastructure projects now slated to slice up our beautiful Northern Westchester neighborhoods. Huge 42″ diameter 800 PSI fracking gas pipelines… under the Hudson River Estuary and through dozens of back yards… what could go wrong? While we benefit from a quasi fracking moratorium in NY State, the infrastructure the industry wants is rather quietly getting rubber-stamped by their paid shills in DC, the Federal Energy Regulation Commission (“FERC”).
A good place to start your exploration on Spectra Energy’s big idea for Norther Westchester is here: http://sape2016.org/
For more on the entire mess, visit Sane Energy Project, here: http://saneenergyproject.org/ and New Yorkers Against Fracking, here: http://nyagainstfracking.org/
Joanne Corey says
I live in Broome County NY with high volume hydrofracking going on just across my town’s border in PA. Our PA neighbors have suffered from the industry’s pollution and also a number of socioeconomic problems, such as increased crime including sexual assualt, skyrocketing rents, increased traffic and accidents, declining property values, inability to get mortgages and property insurance for leased parcels, liens placed against homes when drilling companies fail to pay their subcontractors, high decibel noise, bright nighttime lighting that interferes with sleep, strains on emergency and medical services, increased incidence of homelessness, and more.
Some of the pollution has already crossed into New York; air/atmospheric pollution easily affects us. The governor and legislature can and must protect New York from added pollution and negative socioeconomic impacts by permanently banning unconventional fossil fuel extraction, infrastrucutre, and waste disposal and by supporting a rapid transition to renewable energy.
Dylan Weiss says
All of the above are true except the statement … “The Marcellus Shale, the rock formation underneath New York and Pennsylvania that the gas industry WANTS TO FRACK…” the incorrect phrase is — “WANTS TO FRACK.” It should state that in PA fracking IS fracking. Unconventional hydraulic drilling has been exponentially growing annually in PA rural areas. In addition to the above mentioned harmful effects of fracking you can also add earth quakes, illegal activities like dumping of waste water, lack of regulations specific to the industry, poor oversight by DEP, shoddy leads, inability of local first responders to deal with accidents, and forced pooling to name a few. New York, please heed the unfortunate example set by PA. And what about those jobs? They are not going tom Pennsylvanians, they are bringing workers in from Texas and the gulf states. Beware the gold rush mentality of boom and bust!
Deirdre Aherne says
Thanks for such a clear overview of some of the health and climate risks of fracking. Your writer does not point out that another risk of fracking is that while we (US energy) are investing our money into risky activities like fracking we are missing the boat on developing clean, renewable energy sources that can help us reduce pollution and avert a climate disaster. We need to stop exploitation of fossil fuels, including methane (fracked) gas and invest our money into 21st century, sustainable technology that can provide solutions to the climate crisis. Sinking more money into nasty oil and gas wells is a recipe for economic doom.
Taxpayer1301 says
As one who has studied fracking for the past four years, a lawyer, a former government official, and an educator, I know that this article is accurate and the dangers of fracking to local economies, local public health, and local enviornments along with the major contribution to global warming it makes are, if anything, understated. Thanks, Jessica, for your portrayal of fracking. Its bad news!
Martha Cameron says
All true. Glad to see the word is getting out. I had occasion to tour fracking sites in Pennsylvania about a year ago. It was truly horrifying to see how industrialized these urban areas had become — fracking wells in the middle of pastures, giant cuts through the woods for pipelines. Talked to one guy, a hunter, who said he still hunted but was afraid to eat the meat because the deer were drinking from frack-waste “brine ponds” that were full of chemicals. Scary part is, those chemicals were leaching into the ground all over that area!
We really need to get off the coal-oil-gas pipeline. Imagine what we could do with wind and solar in upstate New York!
Patricia Goldsmith says
This is an excellent overview of our current situation. We need to choose, now, where to put our resources, because time is short. We don’t have the time and resources to build up a whole third wave of fossil fuel infrastructure for fracking AND build up the renewable infrastructure we need to deal with our changed climate. The choice couldn’t be clearer. One way, fracking, is dirty, dangerous, expensive, but entrenched. The other way, renewable energy, is clean, harmless, and allows people to generate most of their own energy and capitalize on free sun and wind power. Gov. Cuomo claims to understand that climate change is real, but his actions don’t show it. It’s time to make New York the pre-eminent leader in renewable energy, creating thousands of permanent, good, local jobs. It’s time to permanently ban fracking in New York.
Pat Almonrode says
Ms. Roff hits the nail on the head. Fracking is inherently dangerous. To add a few more strokes to the nasty picture she paints:
1. Well casings fail at an alarming rate. According to a 2013 report in The Tyee, relying heavily on the work of Dr. Anthony Ingraffea from Cornell, “industry studies clearly show that five to seven per cent of all new oil and gas wells leak. As wells age, the percentage of leakers can increase to a startling 30 or 50 per cent. But the worst leakers remain ‘deviated’ or horizontal wells commonly used for hydraulic fracturing. … Industry has proposed between 150,000 to 200,000 new wells to develop the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania, West Virginia and New York. Given current practices that means 10,000 to 20,000 new wells leaking methane into the atmosphere or groundwater and many more over their lifetimes.” Source: “Shale Gas: How Often do Fracked Wells Leak?”, The Tyee, Jan 9, 2013 (http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/01/09/Leaky-Fracked-Wells/). Failed well casings allow both gas (methane) and frack fluids to migrate out of the well bore – and into groundwater.
2. Most importantly, there is no good reason TO frack. The continued extraction of natural gas, and especially the extraction of gas through unconventional (and expensive) methods like fracking, makes no economic sense – and hides an even more sinister reality. We currently have a domestic glut of natural gas (see, e.g., “Net natural gas imports drop as U.S. production soars,” Houston Chronicle, May 31, 2014 (http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/article/Net-natural-gas-imports-drop-as-U-S-production-5518514.php)). The only economically sensible thing to do with all the “excess” gas that fracking produces is to export it overseas, where supplies are more scarce and so prices are higher. But the only economical way to do THAT – to export the gas – is to first cool it to the point that it changes from a gas to a liquid: Liquified Natural Gas or LNG.
Now, LNG explosions can be truly disastrous, as Staten Islanders found out in 1973 (see, e.g., http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2013/12/to_frack_or_not_to_frack_state.html). But perhaps more importantly, liquifying all that gas would require lots of new infrastructure (think Cove Point, MD; think the proposed Port Ambrose project, off the coast of Long Island). The building of all that infrastructure would lock us into continuing to use natural gas, and continuing to frack for it, when we as a society SHOULD be putting our efforts and our investments into developing and deploying renewable energy.
The planet is burning, and it’s only going to get worse unless and until we take meaningful steps to break the stranglehold of the fossil-fuel industry. It’s time to demand real action from Governor Cuomo and our other political leaders – state, national, and international. We must put a price on carbon (see http://citizensclimatelobby.org/carbon-tax/), and we must forge a binding, ambitious, world-wide agreement to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions. Let’s make our voices heard. Join the People’s Climate March in Manhattan on September 21 (www.peoplesclimate.org/march).
wendie goetz says
Exceptional summary. The cumulative processes of fracking have led our country into creating a dangerous D- infrastructure. The addition of high voltage electric towers polluting neighborhoods and landscapes has nearly doubled the slaughter of trees, all to power the addition of compressor stations to propel more pipelines. These pipes slated for more profit and a push to massive exports, sacrificing citizen health. This addition of the harvesting of helium, I am investigating, is also literally bringing earth closer to the sun.
Only a renewable, clean green infrastructure plan with new solutions can save our species in this climate game of life and death.
Mary Thorpe says
As time goes on, more dangers from fracking come to light, though it is a pretty dim light. Why aren’t they covered more in the nightly news or mainstream media? The paid gas industry ads are shown ad nauseam. The greenhouse gas effects of fugitive methane emissions alone should be enough to shut down extraction. But in addition, the list of those harmed by the industry keeps growing- now up to 6085 and no doubt incomplete. Then there are social effects of increased crime, prostitution, increased heavy traffic and accidents, strain on medical and emergency services. Who would really want it if they didn’t close their eyes to all the negatives?
Paula Kaartinen says
In the Southern Tier of NY, the Chemung County Landfill is accepting radioactive drill cuttings and fracking waste containing toxic chemicals from Pennsylvania. The landfill leachate is “treated” at a waste water treatment plant in Elmira that is not equipped to treat this kind of toxic waste. The “treated” water is dumped into the Chemung River, a popular recreation waterway and water source for thousands of residents. If fracking is allowed in NY, where will we send our fracking waste? It will pile up in landfills and be dumped in rivers. Southern NY counties won’t be able to stop the contamination from coming to their cities.
Courtney says
People also seem to think that fracking only impacts the rural communities in which it occurs. This new AIM pipeline project proves otherwise. Spectra wants to build at 42″ natural gas pipeline right through Northern Westchester (the AIM project) and then come back in a couple years and build even more pipeline in the same area (Atlantic Bridge project). These will bring with them all the health, safety, and financial risks, all of this to transport fracked gas to New England for export.
Fracking hurts all of us. This is bad news for Westchester.
Edie Kantrowitz says
The role of hydrofracking in contaminating drinking water is well known, but people are now also starting to realize just how much fracking and the utilization of natural gas contributes to climate disruption. Natural gas is not a “bridge” fuel, it’s just more of the same fossil fuel nonsense. What we need is to switch to renewable energy without delay. We just don’t have the time to waste.
Grace Bennett says
I want to thank the anti-fracking community for “occupying” Inside Chappaqua and Inside Armonk Magazines. You’ve convinced me. Hopefully, your messages penetrate our leaders’ consciousness and the right decisions are made.
Susan Rubin says
Here in Westchester County, a 42″ fracked gas pipeline is planned for 1,500 feet away from the aging Indian Point Nuclear Power plant. This is the only gas pipeline in the entire country within such a short distance to a nuke plant.
Gas pipelines are potentially explosive as the people of San Bruno California discovered in 2010 when a 30″ pipeline exploded killing 8 people, incinerating 40 homes and creating a wall of fire 1000 feet high. Imagine what a 42″ gas pipeline could do right next to a nuke plant. Makes our county an even larger terrorist target.
Let’s not sit this one out. Use your voice and get involved. http://sape2016.org/