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"No evidence" that fracking can be done without threatening human health: Report
The report, published by two groups, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York, sites an earlier literature review that found 69 percent of studies on water quality during the same time period found evidence of or potential for fracking-associated water contamination, and 87 percent of studies on air quality found "significant air pollutant emissions" associated with the industry.
The new report looks at 1,778 articles from peer-reviewed medical or scientific journals, investigative reports by journalists, and reports from government agencies on fracking. Fracking is another name for hydraulic fracturing, which is a process of extracting natural oil and gas from the Earth by drilling deep wells and injecting liquid at high pressure.
"When we first started issuing this report in 2014, we predicted we'd eventually see health impacts based on what we saw happening to air and water," Sandra Steingraber, a professor of Environmental Studies and Sciences at Ithaca College and one of the lead authors of the study, told EHN. "Now we're beginning to see actual evidence of human harm."
Other recent literature reviews have also found links between fracking and a range of health effects including preterm births, high-risk pregnancies, asthma, migraine headaches, fatigue, nasal and sinus symptoms, and skin disorders.
The new report also examines studies on the natural gas industry's impact on climate change, and finds that due to methane leaks, natural gas extraction could be contributing to global warming even more than coal.
"It's now clear that swapping out coal plants for natural gas is at best a lateral move," Steinraber said. "And it's beginning to look like it might even be more like getting out of the frying pan and into the fire."
Steingraber, a member of Concerned Health Professionals of New York, said that in 2014 there were only 400 studies that met the criteria for the report.
"The state of New York banned fracking in 2014 on the basis of those 400 studies," she said. "As of April, there were 1,778 studies. So we have more than 4 times the amount of evidence as we did then, and the evidence that fracking cannot be done safely has only been reinforced by the new literature."
About 20 percent (355) of the studies evaluated in the report were published in 2018. An analysis of recent data conducted by the environmental advocacy group FracTracker found that 90 percent of studies published from 2016-2018 on the health impacts of fracking found a positive association with harm or potential harm.
“Literally in our backyards”
Credit: Mark Dixon/Flickr
Meanwhile, industry officials maintain that the practice is safe.
Last week, more than 100 groups, 800 individual Pennsylvania residents, and a few celebrities sent a public letter to Gov. Tom Wolf urging the state to investigate potential links between the industry and many cases of rare childhood cancers in Southwestern Pennsylvania, and to stop issuing new drilling permits in the meantime.
In response, the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a pro-industry group, sent the Governor its own letter stating that there are no conclusive links between childhood cancer and fracking, and urging him to "reject [the] ridiculous request" to halt fracking until health impacts can be studied further.
Steingraber pointed out that much of the data included in her organization's new report comes from Pennsylvania, since fracking has been underway in the state for more than a decade and is taking place in more densely populated regions than fracking hubs like Colorado, Wyoming and Texas. Pennsylvania is the country's second-largest natural gas producer behind Texas.
"What makes fracking different from any other industry I've studied in public health is that there's no industrial zone," she said. "It's taking place literally in our backyards, and unfortunately some of the best evidence for both polluting emissions and emerging health crises is coming out of Southwestern Pennsylvania."
Representatives from Physicians for Social Responsibility and Concerned Health Professionals of New York traveled to Harrisburg today to present their findings to Pennsylvania lawmakers.
Steingraber will be among them, and said she hopes to draw attention to Wolf's recent support for a full ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin on the eastern side of the state.
"Gov. Wolf's support of a fracking ban in the Delaware River Basin is essentially an admission that fracking is inherently dangerous," Steingraber said. "I give him credit for that wise decision, but kids in Southwestern Pennsylvania are supposed to have the same rights as kids in the eastern part of the state."
"If fracking is too dangerous for the Delaware River Basin," she added, "it's too dangerous for anyone's river basin."
Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect where the original data came from for the new report.
25 zones along the proposed Shell Falcon Pipeline are at risk of explosions due to landslides
The Falcon Pipeline is just one piece of a massive network of unconventional oil and gas-related infrastructure being built by Shell and its affiliates and business partners in Pennsylvania with the aim of turning the region into a new petrochemical hub. The development has elicited concern from researchers, residents and environmental groups about the increased risk of explosions and spills, as well as the cumulative impact on air and water quality in the region.
Two of the sites identified by Shell as being prone to landslides along the proposed Falcon Pipeline route are in Allegheny County. The other 12 sites are in Beaver County—35 miles west of Pittsburgh—where on Monday a natural gas pipeline not affiliated with Shell exploded, destroying one home, two garages, a barn, and several vehicles. The explosion and subsequent fire didn't result in any serious injuries, but it forced the evacuation of 25 homes, shut down the interstate, and caused the local school district to close for the day.
The explosion, in a brand new section of Energy Transfer Partners' Rover Pipeline, is being attributed to a landslide following heavy rains over the weekend. This isn't the first time a landslide has caused a natural gas pipeline to explode: In June, landslides resulted in the rupture and explosion of a TransCanada natural gas pipeline in Marshall County, West Virginia.
Shell is currently constructing a multi-billion dollar ethane cracker plant in Potter Township, just five miles from the site of the Energy Transfer Pipeline explosion. Shell's proposed Falcon Pipeline would transport large volumes of natural gas and liquids to the ethane cracker plant to be converted into ethylene for use in plastics manufacturing.
In its permit application, Shell identified "landslide risk" areas along the proposed route for the Falcon Pipeline. The FracTracker Alliance, a Pittsburgh-based oil and gas industry watchdog group, has mapped those locations. In Pennsylvania, the 14 landslide-prone areas on or near the proposed pipeline route total 2.1 miles.
In Potter Township, where the ethane cracker plant is under construction, the Falcon Pipeline would cut through an approximately half-mile long landslide risk zone located about 800 to 1,000 feet from neighborhoods with 20 to 30 homes in them. One house in Potter Township sits 665 feet from a portion of the proposed pipeline route identified as being in a landslide risk zone.
In Independence Township, one home sits 396 feet from a landslide risk zone along the proposed pipeline route.
"According to our analysis, the blast radius for the Falcon pipeline there is about 900 feet, so if there were an accident, all those homes are in the impact radius near the landslide area," Kirk Jalbert, a science and technology researcher and assistant professor at Arizona State University, told EHN. Jalbert previously served on the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection's (DEP) Environmental Justice Advisory Board, and as Manager of Community-Based Research and Engagement for the FracTracker Alliance.
The Pennsylvania DEP found 101 technical deficiencies in Shell's initial Falcon Pipeline application, and Shell has since issued a response to those citations.
"It's possible there are sections of the proposed pipeline route that were moved away from landslide areas in Shell's responses," Jalbert noted, "but it's unlikely that all of them were moved."
Shell did not respond to inquiries about whether the proposed pipeline route has been changed to avoid landslide risk areas.
“I hope this explosion serves as a wake-up call”
On September 6—four days before the Energy Transfer Partners pipeline explosion—local environmental groups held a rally at the Pittsburgh office of the Pennsylvania DEP to urge the agency to deny Shell Pipeline Company's permit application for the Falcon Ethane Pipeline, in part due to concerns over landslide risks.
"We think there are still significant problems with Shell's application for the Falcon pipeline," Matt Mehalik, executive director of environmental advocacy group The Breathe Project, told EHN. "This pipeline would go through a route that's very close to many homes in Southwestern Pennsylvania. I hope this explosion serves as a wake-up call to homeowners about the serious risks associated with Shell's plan."
Record-setting precipitation in 2018 has caused hundreds of landslides across Southwestern Pennsylvania, prompting Allegheny County to seek a disaster declaration from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for emergency funds to help clean up the damage. The county estimated that landslides caused $18 million in damage in 31 municipalities, including Pittsburgh, between February and April.
Climate change is causing more extreme rainfall events across the U.S., resulting in an increase in the frequency and severity of flooding.
"People will say this explosion happened because of unusually heavy rains," Mehalik said, "but if you're building a pipeline that can't withstand five inches of heavy rain over a weekend, something is wrong."
Jalbert emphasized that the Energy Transfer Partners pipeline exploded just a week after being brought online.
"Representatives from oil and gas pipeline companies often say that explosions only happen on old pipelines, and that they're using the most stringent design standards available to build these safe new pipelines," he said. "They can't say that anymore. This pipeline was brand new. Clearly something is wrong with the regulatory review process."
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