Book by Andrew Nikiforuk
HEALTH EFFECTS OF FRACKING — The studies are voluminous and alarming.
From an Article by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyree Online Magazine, B. C., Canada, June 11, 2016
In 2014, a U.S. federal study reported that pollution from the production of natural gas in rural areas can increase the incidence of congenital heart defects among babies born to mothers living close to well sites.
In 2015, another major U.S. study found that the fracking of unconventional rock formations can liberate and accelerate the release of radon, a highly carcinogenic gas into people’s homes.
The studies are all part of a growing body of new peer-reviewed scientific literature that shows the industry is having a definitive health impact on rural populations.
In 2009, the number of peer-reviewed studies on the impact of shale gas or tight oil development (all use the technology of fracking) numbered but six papers.
But due to unrelenting controversy, the research on the impact of unconventional drilling has grown to encompass nearly 700 studies.
This year, researchers with PSE Healthy Energy, a scientific institute that supports energy policies based on evidence, assessed the studies and separated out those specifically dealing with air, water, and human health.
The researchers found that vast majority of studies that fell into those categories showed serious public health problems ranging from human exposure to cancer-causing chemicals to water contamination.
Of 31 studies that looked at human health impacts, 26 of them — 84 per cent — found significant public health hazards or elevated risks. Of 58 studies on water quality, 69 per cent found actual water contamination or potential problems.
And out of 46 studies on air quality, 87 per cent found direct evidence of elevated air pollution downwind from fracking sites either from trucks, venting or flaring.
Researchers concluded that their assessment ”demonstrates that the weight of the scientific literature indicates that there are hazards and elevated risks to human health as well as possible adverse health outcomes.”
See the additional information by Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyree, June 11, 2016.
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Slick Water, by Andrew Nikiforuk, B. C., Canada
From the award-winning author of Tar Sands comes the shocking, inspiring story of an oil and gas industry insider’s determined stand to hold government and industry legally accountable for the damage fracking leaves in its wake.
When Jessica Ernst’s well water turned into a flammable broth that even her dogs refused to drink, the biologist and long-time oil patch consultant discovered that energy giant Encana had secretly fracked hundreds of gas wells around her home, piercing her community’s drinking water aquifer.
Since then, her ongoing lawsuit against Encana, Alberta Environment, and the Energy Resources Conservation Board has made her a folk hero in many places worldwide where fracking is underway. In this powerful work of investigative journalism, Andrew Nikiforuk interweaves Ernst’s story with the science of fracking and stories of human and environmental repercussions left in its wake. Slick Water raises dramatic questions about the role of Big Oil in government, society’s obsession with rapidly depleting supplies of unconventional oil and gas, and the future of civil society.
< << ANDREW NIKIFORUK WINS ALBERTA LITERARY AWARD
Tyee energy writer’s latest book ‘Slick Water’ scooped up the Wilfrid Eggleston Award for Nonfiction. Bravo, Andrew! >>>
http://www.greystonebooks.com/book_details.php?isbn_upc=9781771640763
See also: http://www.FrackCheckWV.net
http://www.sunnyhill.org/social-justice/local/environmental/
Fracking of Southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale
Many members at the Sunnyhill UU Church have signed petitions and attended community meetings and rallies to protest fracking in Southwestern Pennsylvania.
Buried thousands of feet beneath the earth’s surface, Marcellus Shale is a sedimentary rock that stretches from upstate New York to Southwestern Pennsylvania to West Virginia and to parts of western Ohio. The name comes from the town of Marcellus, and the rock itself is millions of years old, formed from mud and organic material. The natural gas created over millions of years as a byproduct of decomposition is trapped in tiny spaces and fissures within the rock. The Marcellus Shale is just one of many shale formations across the world.
Fracking (hydraulic fracturing) is a process in which drillers blast millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals at high-pressure into sub-surface rock formations. This process creates fractures in the rock, allowing the flow of recoverable oil or gas. In some cases, a well is fracked just after it is newly drilled. Many wells continue to be fracked numerous times to maximmize oil and gas recovery. According to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission, 90 percent of all oil and gas wells in the U.S. are fracked to boost production.
During the last few years, a series of accidents in Pennsylvania and elsewhere brought attention to fracking and it has come under attack as dangerous to both human health and the environment. The most common problem involves disposal: How do drilling companies dispose of the toxic sludge byproduct of fracking. Texas-based XTO Energy, for instance, racked up 31 fracking-related pollution violations at 20 wells In 2010, a single drilling company received 31 pollution violations as a result of fracking in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale.
Disposal is not the only or perhaps the most troubling problem with fracking: Between 20 and 40 percent of the chemicals remain underground. These byproducts of fracking contaminate the drinking water and land that plants, animals, and people rely on.
Air pollution now a major contributor to stroke, global study finds
… Scientists say finding is alarming, and shows that harm caused by air pollution to the lungs, heart and brain has been underestimated …
From an Article by Ian Sample, Science editor, The Guardian, June 9, 2016
Air pollution has become a major contributor to stroke for the first time, with unclean air now blamed for nearly one third of the years of healthy life lost to the condition worldwide.
In an unprecedented survey of global risk factors for stroke, air pollution in the form of fine particulate matter ranked seventh in terms of its impact on healthy lifespan, while household air pollution from burning solid fuels ranked eighth.
Valery Feigin, director of the National Institute for Stroke and Applied Neurosciences at Auckland University of Technology, said that while he expected air pollution to emerge as a threat, the extent of the problem had taken researchers by surprise.
Urgent action needed to stop terrifying rise in air pollution, warns OECD
“We did not expect the effect would be of this magnitude, or increasing so much over the last two decades,” he said. “Our study is the first to demonstrate a large and increasingly hazardous effect of air pollution on stroke burden worldwide.”
The result is particularly striking because the analysis is likely to have underestimated the effects of air pollution on stroke, as the impact of burning fossil fuels was not fully accounted for. Emissions from fossil fuels are more harmful to the cardiovascular system than the fine particulate matter the team analysed, Feigin said.
Scientists in the field said the “alarming” finding, published in the journal Lancet Neurology, showed that harm caused by air pollution to the lungs, heart and brain had been underestimated.
About 15 million people a year suffer a stroke worldwide. Nearly six million die, and five million are left with permanent disabilities, such as loss of sight and speech, paralysis and confusion.
Feigin analysed a haul of medical data from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2013 to build a picture of how different risk factors for stroke left people disabled and cut their lives short in 188 countries between 1990 and 2013. The study highlighted the most important contributors to stroke worldwide as high blood pressure, a diet low in fruit, obesity, a high salt diet, smoking, and not eating enough vegetables.
Nearly three quarters of the global burden of stroke was linked to lifestyle choices, such as smoking, bad diet and too little exercise, suggesting that people can do a lot to reduce their risk of stroke. Meanwhile, ambient air pollution was linked to 17%, and household air quality to 16%, of the burden of stroke, measured by the years of healthy life it reduced. Pollution in homes from burning solid fuel for heat emerged as a risk factor for stroke only in low and middle income countries.
From 1990 to 2013, the global harm caused by stroke due to poor diet, smoking and almost every other risk factor rose, with only secondhand smoke and household pollution falling. Environmental air pollution came from vehicles, power plants, industry and fossil fuels, with traditional burning of biomass a major source in developing countries.
Over the long term, air pollution is thought to increase the risk of stroke by hardening arteries in the brain, making blood thicker and raising blood pressure, so boosting the risk of clots in the brain. But it may have acute effects too, such as rupturing the plaques that build up in arteries, which can then go on to cause blockages.
“As one of the main sources of air pollution is car emissions, staying away from the streets, especially at rush hour, or avoiding busy roads, can help to reduce exposure to air pollution,” said Feigin. On days when air pollution is high, he said people should stay indoors as much as possible.
Air pollution: a dark cloud of filth poisons the world’s cities
The study follows a report in February from the Royal College of Physicians which blamed air pollution both inside and outside homes for at least 40,000 deaths a year in the UK.
Stephen Holgate, professor of immunopharmacology at Southampton University, who led the Royal College of Physicians report, said it had long been known that air pollution was a driver or cardiovascular disease from work that had focused on heart attacks.
“This impressive international survey now throws into stark relief a major effect of air pollution as a risk factor in stroke,” he told the Guardian. “It adds further to the increasing evidence highlighted by the recent Royal College of Physicians Report showing that air pollution has severe adverse toxic effects at multiple sites in the body from conception to old age. Air pollution is a major public health hazard and demands action to improve air quality both in the developed and developing world.”
In a comment piece that accompanies Feigin’s study, Vladimir Hachinksi at the University of Western Ontario and Mahmoud Reza Azarpazhooh at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences in Iran, stress the global nature of the air pollution problem.
“The most alarming finding was that about a third of the burden of stroke is attributable to air pollution. Although air pollution is known to damage the lungs, heart, and brain, the extent of this threat seems to have been underestimated,” they write. “Air pollution is not just a problem in big cities, but is also a global problem. With the ceaseless air streams across oceans and continents, what happens in Beijing matters in Berlin.”
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/jun/09/air-pollution-now-major-contributor-to-stroke
See also: http://www.FrackCheckWV.net