In Effort to Protect Public Health, Groups Seek Fracking Chemical Information

In Effort to Protect Public Health, Groups Seek Fracking Chemical Information Press Release, March 26, 2012
Under regulations approved in 2010, Wyoming became the first state in the nation to require well operators to disclose the identities of chemicals that are mixed with water and injected into the ground during fracking. But since the regulations were adopted, the Commission has approved some 50 chemical secrecy requests by Halliburton and other oil and gas service companies. … “As a landowner facing deep oil and gas development, I need to know what chemicals are being injected underground so I can protect my water and land,”…. A review of the information that is already available is sobering: 78 percent of known fracking chemicals are associated with serious short-term health effects such as burning eyes, rashes, asthma-like effects, nausea, vomiting, headaches, dizziness, tremors, and convulsions. Between 22 and 47 percent of those chemicals also are associated with longer-term health effects, including cancer, organ damage, and harm to the endocrine system. “Without knowing more about the chemicals used during fracking, it’s nearly impossible for residents to determine whether their drinking water has been contaminated by oil and gas development,” … “We found a lot of the information is being improperly labeled a trade secret, which means it is not public information as the regulation intended.”