As someone who, together with Noel Newsome, was personally responsible for
writing a report to the 'UK's Department of the Environment which led to
the passage of the Deposit of Poisonous Wastes Act 1972 I was an
environmentalist then, and I am no less an environmentalist now. I was, and
still am, proud to be one. Also, although originally trained to be an
industrial chemist 50-odd years ago and don't consider myself to be
anywhere near qualified to be an expert on some of the items of fracking
fluids, I nevertheless claim to have a fairly balanced judgement on what is
scientific and what is dubiously so. If the critics of Bamberger and
Oswald's paper are correct -- that the latter give no identifiable sources
for their evidence then, until we see three or four other papers (and in
front-line journals, too) then I, too, will remain sceptical of the harm to
cattle that is supposed to be caused by fracking.
Keith
At 17:23 29/01/2013, Arthur wrote:
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Steve Kurtz
Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2013 12:04 PM
Subject: [Ottawadissenters] Livestock falling ill in fracking regions,
raising concerns about food - The Ecologist
<http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1784382/livestock_falling_ill_in_fracking_regions_raising_concerns_about_food.html>http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1784382/livestock_falling_ill_in_fracking_regions_raising_concerns_about_food.html
[]
<http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/1784382/livestock_falling_ill_in_fracking_regions_raising_concerns_about_food.html>Livestock
Falling Ill in Fracking Regions, Raising Concerns About Food
ELIZABETH ROYTE - Ecologist
Here an aspect of the food trend that is just beginning to emerge: The
intersection of food and fracking. It is not a pretty picture.
In the midst of the US domestic energy boom, livestock on farms near
oil-and-gas drilling operations nationwide have been quietly falling sick
and dying. Elizabeth Royte reports
While scientists have yet to isolate cause and effect, many suspect
chemicals used in drilling and hydrofracking (or 'fracking") operations
are poisoning animals through the air, water, or soil.
Last year, Michelle Bamberger, an Ithaca, New York, veterinarian, and
Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell's College of
Veterinary Medicine, published the first and only peer-reviewed report to
suggest a link between fracking and illness in food animals.
The authors compiled 24 case studies of farmers in six shale-gas states
whose livestock experienced neurological, reproductive, and acute
gastrointestinal problems after being exposed-either accidentally or
incidentally-to fracking chemicals in the water or air. The article,
published in New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational
Health Policy, describes how scores of animals died over the course of
several years.
The death toll is insignificant when measured against the nation's
livestock population (some 97 million beef cattle go to market each year),
but environmental advocates believe these animals constitute an early warning.
Exposed livestock 'are making their way into the food system, and it's
very worrisome to us," Bamberger says. 'They live in areas that have
tested positive for air, water, and soil contamination. Some of these
chemicals could appear in milk and meat products made from these animals."
In Louisiana, 17 cows died after an hour's exposure to spilled fracking
fluid, which is injected miles underground to crack open and release
pockets of natural gas. The most likely cause of death: respiratory failure.
In New Mexico, hair testing of sick cattle that grazed near well pads
found petroleum residues in 54 of 56 animals.
In northern central Pennsylvania, 140 cattle were exposed to fracking
wastewater when an impoundment was breached. Approximately 70 cows died,
and the remainder produced only 11 calves, of which three survived.
In western Pennsylvania, an overflowing wastewater pit sent fracking
chemicals into a pond and a pasture where pregnant cows grazed: Half their
calves were born dead. Dairy operators in shale-gas areas of Colorado,
Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Texas have also reported the death of goats.
Drilling and fracking a single well requires up to 7 million gallons of
water, plus an additional 400,000 gallons of additives, including
lubricants, biocides, scale- and rust-inhibitors, solvents, foaming and
defoaming agents, emulsifiers and de-emulsifiers, stabilizers and
breakers. At almost every stage of developing and operating an oil or gas
well, chemicals and compounds can be introduced into the environment.
Cows lose weight, die
After drilling began just over the property line of Jacki Schilke's ranch
in the northwestern corner of North Dakota, in the heart of the state's
booming Bakken Shale, cattle began limping, with swollen legs and
infections. Cows quit producing milk for their calves, and they lost from
60 to 80 pounds in a week and their tails mysteriously dropped off.
Eventually, five animals died, according to Schilke.
Ambient air testing by a certified environmental consultant detected
elevated levels of benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene,
and xylene-and well testing revealed high levels of sulfates, chromium,
chloride, and strontium. Schilke says she moved her herd upwind and
upstream from the nearest drill pad.
Although her steers currently look healthy, she says, 'I won't sell them
because I don't know if they're okay."
Nor does anyone else. Energy companies are exempt from key provisions of
environmental laws, which makes it difficult for scientists and citizens
to learn precisely what is in drilling and fracking fluids or airborne
emissions. And without information on the interactions between these
chemicals and pre-existing environmental chemicals, veterinarians can't
hope to pinpoint an animal's cause of death.
The risks to food safety may be even more difficult to parse, since
different plants and animals take up different chemicals through different
pathways.
'There are a variety of organic compounds, metals, and radioactive
material [released in the fracking process] that are of human health
concern when livestock meat or milk is ingested," Motoko Mukai, a
veterinary toxicologist at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine, says.
These 'compounds accumulate in the fat and are excreted into milk. Some
compounds are persistent and do not get metabolized easily."
Veterinarians don't know how long chemicals may remain in animals, farmers
aren't required to prove their livestock are free of contamination before
middlemen purchase them, and the Food Safety Inspection Service of the
U.S. Department of Agriculture isn't looking for these compounds in
carcasses at slaughterhouses.
Documenting the scope of the problem is difficult: Scientists lack funding
to study the matter, and rural vets remain silent for fear of retaliation.
Farmers who receive royalty checks from energy companies are reluctant to
complain, and those who have settled with gas companies following a spill
or other accident are forbidden to disclose information to investigators.
Some food producers would rather not know what's going on, say ranchers
and veterinarians.
'It takes a long time to build up a herd's reputation," rancher Dennis
Bauste of Trenton Lake, North Dakota, says. 'I'm gonna sell my calves and
I don't want them to be labeled as tainted. Besides, I wouldn't know what
to test for. Until there's a big wipe-out, a major problem, we're not
gonna hear much about this."
Fracking proponents criticise Bamberger and Oswald's paper as a political,
not a scientific, document. 'They used anonymous sources, so no one can
verify what they said," says Steve Everley, of the industry lobby group
Energy In Depth. The authors didn't provide a scientific assessment of
impacts-testing what specific chemicals might do to cows that ingest them,
for example-so treating their findings as scientific, he continues, 'is
laughable at best, and dangerous for public debate at worst."
The National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the main lobbying group for
ranchers, takes no position on fracking, but some ranchers are beginning
to speak out. 'These are industry-supporting conservatives, not radicals,"
says Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the environmental group,
Natural Resources Defense Council. 'They are the experts in their animals'
health, and they are very concerned."
Last March, Christopher Portier, director of the National Center for
Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, called for studies of oil and gas production's impact on food
plants and animals. None are currently planned by the federal government.
As local food booms, consumers wary
But consumers intensely interested in where and how their food is grown
aren't waiting for hard data to tell them their meat or milk is safe. For
them, the perception of pollution is just as bad as the real thing.
'My beef sells itself. My farm is pristine. But a restaurant doesn't want
to visit and see a drill pad on the horizon," Ken Jaffe, who raises
grass-fed cattle in upstate New York, says. Only recently has the local
foods movement, in regions across the country, reached a critical mass.
But the movement's lofty ideals could turn out to be, in shale gas areas,
a double-edged sword.
Should the moratorium on hydrofracking in New York State be lifted, the
16,200-member Park Slope Food Co-op, in Brooklyn, will no longer buy food
from farms anywhere near drilling operations-a $4 million loss for upstate
producers. The livelihood of organic goat farmer Steven Cleghorn, who's
surrounded by active wells in Pennsylvania, is already in jeopardy.
'People at the farmers market are starting to ask exactly where this food
comes from," he says.
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