2012: Ohio passes one of the worst fracking laws in the U.S. but best for health harming, polluting frac’ers!
Frac’ing: It’s only done with kittens & cream, perfectly sweet & safe!
What’s in fracking chemicals? Energy nonprofit demands answers by Beth Burger, Sept 16, 2019, The Columbus Dispatch
Ohioans could be exposed to dangerous chemicals that state laws don’t require drilling and fracking companies using them to disclose, according to a report issued by a nonprofit organization.
“Ohio and 28 other states have enacted rules that require some public disclosure of fracking chemicals. However, most if not all of these rules have exceptions that allow well owners to withhold chemical identities as trade secrets,” according to a report by the Partnership for Policy Integrity, a group based in Pelham, Massachusetts, that specializes in energy policy.
“We looked at Ohio’s records and found trade-secret chemicals being used extensively in eastern Ohio in oil and natural gas wells, which could be some of the same trade-secret chemicals that the (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) has health concerns about. We can’t say that definitively because the identities are secret,” said senior counsel Dusty Horwitt, who wrote the report.
“But it’s entirely possible that some of these chemicals could have effects that EPA identified like neurotoxicity, developmental toxicity, lung toxicity, kidney toxicity and liver toxicity,” Horwitt said. “People need to know. People have a right to know, and first responders have a right to know if they might be exposed to those types of chemicals.”
… According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, that law “requires chemical disclosure during all aspects of the initial drilling process and during hydraulic fracturing, while adhering to existing federal and state trade-secret/proprietary laws.”
“Meaning, every individual chemical constitute is disclosed,” said Matt Hammond, executive vice president of the association, in an emailed statement to the Dispatch. [Pfffffft! Except for those hidden under trade secrets and the many brazen corporate refusals to disclose chemicals – even when ordered to by the courts! All nicely enabled by non-regulating regulators and oil-patch pimp politicians. Encana continues to violate Alberta’s Rules of Court and the Order by Justice Wittmann, refusing to release to Ernst for her lawssuit (Encana illegally injected 18 Million litres secret frac fluid brew into her community’s drinking water aquifers on one gas well alone) ]
Yet getting disclosure of the chemicals is a high bar to clear, even for first responders.
“It’s my understanding from reading law that they have to file a lawsuit and win to get the information,” Horwitt said.
People can be exposed to the chemicals through leaks, spills, air emissions, the migration of underground fluids from injection wells where fracking wastewater is disposed of, or the migration of oil and gas at production wells. People also can be susceptible when “brine” — a chemical-laden waste byproduct of fracking — is spread on roads as a de-icer, according to the report.
“Chemicals comprise only a small percentage of fracking fluid. But due to some chemicals’ high toxicities and the staggering quantities of fracking fluid, a small percentage of chemicals in today’s wells could equal enough volume to contaminate billions of gallons of water if the chemical leached into the water supplies,” according to the report.
The nonprofit, along with other environmental organizations, filed a request for records on screening of the chemicals by the U.S. EPA. The agency turned over thousands of records for 153 chemicals that showed there were health concerns for at least 109 of them, according to the report.
The industry has argued that hydraulic fracturing adheres to [DE]regulations and [VOLUNTARY] guidelines.
“As an industry, our first priority is that of the environment we all share,” Hammond said. “Anti-oil and gas groups push this false narrative that we don’t care. We do care; this is not just where we work, this is home, and that is why safety always comes first. We have and will continue to advocate for laws and policies like Senate Bill 315, that make Ohio the toughest, fairest and most transparent regulatory framework in the country.” [“Fairest” ! Ya, for polluting law-violating companies!]
The EPA signed off on 62 of the 109 chemicals being used in oil and gas wells. Of the 62, companies concealed from the public the names of 41 of the chemicals, according to the report.
Belmont County had the most wells — 328 — injected with at least one secret fracking chemical, but Carroll County had the most secret fracking chemical injections, at 3,504, according to the report.
Houston-based Encino Acquisition Partners, which acquired the wells of Chesapeake Operating Inc., used the chemicals the most, injecting unnamed chemicals 5,787 times into 474 wells.
… “It could take years before those chemicals move from oil and gas wells into water wells or other water sources where people could be exposed to them,” Horwitt told The Dispatch. “If the contamination occurs, it could be almost impossible to clean up. And that’s one of the reasons why it’s so important that scientists and regulators know these chemical identities so that they can test regularly for them in groundwater, and through other pathways.”
“TRADE SECRET” CHEMICALS INJECTED NEARLY 11,000 TIMES AT OIL AND GAS WELLS IN OHIO by Julie Grant, Sept 15, 2019, alleghenyfront.org
… Some first responders like Silverio Caggiano, fire battalion chief with the Youngstown Fire Department are concerned that this is leaving the public at risk in emergencies. Caggiano has been a hazardous materials technician for more than 28 year and was an original member of the Ohio Hazardous Materials and Weapons of Mass Destruction Technical Advisory Committee.
He says his hazmat team usually gets a warm welcome from local industries that use potentially dangerous chemicals. Most want to coordinate emergency planning.
“When we get to a facility, we’re used to, ‘Here’s everything we got. You guys are the rock stars, help us out,’” he said.
Emergency planning ensures that if there’s an explosion or a fire, the hazmat team knows what chemicals are used at a facility, and how to respond.
But according to Caggiano, oil and gas companies aren’t interested in sharing information about all their chemicals with the local hazmat team.
“Fracking is a whole different deal,” he said. “We’ve made attempts many times to talk to these frack industries and they don’t want to work with you.”
Fracking companies use chemicals for everything from limiting the growth of bacteria, to preventing corrosion of well casings. Ohio laws enacted in 2010 and 2012 require drillers to disclose the chemicals they use.
But, there’s a loophole – oil and gas companies don’t have to identify chemicals they consider “trade secrets.”
… Adam Schroeder, a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Oil and Gas Resources Management said in a recorded audio statement, “Owners are required to disclose product by supplier trade name, chemical name and maximum concentration. An owner may designate certain information as trade secret and withhold it from reporting.”
According to Schroeder, while most fracking chemicals are disclosed in Ohio, 16-percent have been reported as trade secrets since 2012.
“The state can access information from well owners if there’s a spill or other emergency,” he said. “Critical safety information is always available and any additional information can be requested and accessed if necessary.” [EXCEPT ONLY AFTER THE EMERGENCY IS LONG OVER, AND FIRST RESPONDERS, DRINKING WATER, ENVIRONMENT, COMMUNITY PUT AT RISK, HARMED AND OR POLLUTED]
But Caggiano calls this a “pseudo disclosure.” That’s because in an emergency, Caggiano says he doesn’t have time to send an email to ODNR, and wait for a response.
GOOD LUCK ON A FRIDAY, ANY DAY!
THIS IS HOW THE “BEST IN THE WORLD” “WORLD-CLASS” REGULATOR (AER) RESPONDS (NOT) IN ALBERTA TO A FRAC EMERGENCY:
ERCB is now AER
His hazmat team needs to know immediately whether to use water to put out a fire, or something else.
Caggiano gives the example of a gas well fire in Monroe County in 2014. It took days for the state to provide chemical information.
“Three days later they finally got some information. Not three minutes, not three hours, three days,” he said. If there is an incident in Mahoning, his county, “It’s useless to me.”
Tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals spilled into a tributary of the Ohio River as a result of that gas fire, including some that were considered trade secrets. More than 70,000 fish were killed.
… In an email statement, Mike Chadsey, director of public relations for the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, dismisses Horwitt’s report and writes, “Ohio is, and always has been, a full chemical disclosure state.”
Secret Fracking Chemicals a Concern for Ohio by Mary Schuermann Kuhlman, Sept 16, 2019, Public News Service – OH
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Troubling information has been uncovered about the use of so-called classified chemicals in fracking operations in Ohio. Using mapping and data analysis by FracTracker Alliance, new research from the Partnership for Policy Integrity shows the oil and gas industry injected potentially toxic chemicals more than 11,000 times into roughly 1,400 fracking wells between 2013 and 2018.
Report author Dusty Horwitt, senior council at the Partnership, said there’s cause for concern.
“EPA regulators have found that many secret chemicals have health risks,” Horwitt said. “And there are multiple potential pathways of exposure, including leaks and spills, underground migration, also road-spreading of these chemicals. “
Ohio law allows well owners to conceal chemical formulas as trade secrets, which Silverio Caggiano, battalion chief at the Youngstown Fire Department, said ties the hands of first responders who need to act fast in a spill or explosion.
“We depend upon being able to quantify and qualify the product that we’re dealing with so we know how to mitigate it,” Caggiano said. “If I don’t know what it is, I can’t identify its physical properties and how I’m going to take care of it, or how to protect people.”
Under the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, first responders can request trade secret chemical identities in emergencies in a written statement. But Caggiano argued by the time such a request is answered and approved, it’s typically too late.
The industry has claimed trade-secret provisions prevent competitors from stealing their formulas. Horwitt countered there is a way for companies to protect their chemical information without keeping the public in the dark.
“Drilling companies can make their chemical identities available to the public in a random list, so that their competitors would not be able to reverse-engineer that list of chemicals into the products that they’re putting into their wells,” Horwitt said.
Caggiano said he isn’t opposed to fracking, but feels the industry is being given a free pass.
“Long after these companies have grabbed their money and went back to wherever they came from, the body count is going to start. Farmer Jim is going to have problems; he’s going to have leukemia, his wife’s going to have breast cancer, their daughter is going to give birth to a kid that may have birth defects,” Caggiano said. “And these companies are going to be long gone, and we’re going to be stuck with the problems.”
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, chemicals used in fracking can cause irritation to skin and lungs, and can be toxic to nerves, organs and human develop
Secret Fracking Chemicals Threaten Ohioans’ Health, Drinking Water Press Release by Partnership for Policy Integrity, September 16, 2019
Ohio law allows drilling companies to hide chemical identities, even from first responders; EPA records suggest secret fracking chemicals pose serious health risks
Drilling companies injected at least one hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) chemical with an identity kept hidden from the public into more than 1,400 oil and gas wells drilled in Ohio between 2013 and 2018, according to a new report from Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) with mapping and data analysis from FracTracker Alliance. This groundbreaking in-depth analysis of secret fracking chemical use in Ohio shows that according to public records, companies injected undisclosed fracking chemicals 10,992 times into 1,432 wells, utilizing a law that allows these chemical identities to be concealed as trade secrets. The report includes an interactive map that allows readers to locate these wells drilled in eastern Ohio in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations.
The report details evidence compiled by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), including data released to PFPI in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, which indicates that these chemicals could have serious health effects including irritation to skin and lungs, liver toxicity, developmental toxicity and neurotoxicity. As a result, the widespread use of secret fracking chemicals poses serious health risks for people living near Ohio’s oil and gas wells and to first responders who cannot access the chemical identities under Ohio law unless they file and win a lawsuit.
Access the interactive components of this report including opportunities to take action, at www.fractracker.org/projects/ohio-secret-chemicals.
“First responders risk our lives enough without having to be exposed to secret chemicals,” said Silverio Caggiano, battalion chief with the Youngstown Fire Department and an original member of the Ohio Hazardous Materials and Weapons of Mass Destruction Technical Advisory Committees. “Keeping us uninformed not only puts our guys at risk, it prevents us from knowing how to protect the public during emergencies when we typically have only thirty minutes to determine how to contain a chemical spill.”
The health risks from secret fracking chemicals extend to thousands of Ohioans who might be exposed through pathways including the spreading of drilling and fracking wastewater on roads to suppress dust and to remove snow and ice, leaks and spills related to disposal of billions of gallons of wastewater in underground wells, and illegal dumping of wastewater. This wastewater comes not only from Ohio but also from wells in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. In 2014, a fire at a natural gas well in Monroe County caused tens of thousands of gallons of chemicals to spill, including secret fracking chemicals. Fluids from the site flowed into a nearby tributary, where an estimated 70,000 fish subsequently died.
“The use of so many secret and potentially toxic chemicals is deeply troubling to communities where the oil and gas industry operates or wants to pump its wastewater underground,” said Annette McCoy, Trumbull County NAACP President. “How are we supposed to protect ourselves if we don’t know what we could be exposed to?”
“When EPA regulators believe that dozens of secret chemicals used in oil and gas wells pose health risks, the public and first responders have a right to know these chemicals’ identities and where they are being used” said PFPI Senior Counsel, Dusty Horwitt, the report’s author. “Under Ohio’s lax regulations, people could be exposed to toxic chemicals from oil and gas drilling and might not find out until it is too late.”
“Secret exposure to chemicals that our own EPA reports as a potential hazard to human health is unconscionable,” said Alan Lockwood, MD, a national board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility who lives in Oberlin. “Healthcare professionals can’t possibly treat patients properly, make protective public health plans and decisions, and protect first responders without knowing what chemicals are in the environment.”
Exposure risks may be increasing. New oil and gas wells have grown significantly in terms of vertical and horizontal length and hydraulic fracturing fluid injected. According to public records, in 2017 companies fractured the average well in Ohio with about 13 million gallons of water, and at least one has used more than 70 million gallons, dwarfing the 18 million gallons of water that Youngstown delivers each day to its 175,000 customers. Chemicals comprise only a small percentage of fracking fluid. But due to some chemicals’ high toxicities and the staggering quantities of fracking fluid, a small percentage of chemicals in today’s wells could equal enough volume to contaminate billions of gallons of water if the chemicals leached into water supplies. The report also shows that the use of secret chemicals in Ohio’s oil and gas wells extends to the drilling process that precedes fracking and often involves boring directly through groundwater.
“Thousands of secret chemicals are being injected into oil and gas wells throughout Ohio. In many cases, even workers on site have no idea what chemicals they are using in these proprietary blends,” said Matt Kelso, FracTracker Alliance Manager of Data and Technology. “This is a real obstacle to those trying to understand the exposure risk, whether through spills, groundwater contamination, or off-gassing of potentially hazardous materials.”
Download the report here.
Refer also to:
Secrets & lies by AER & Alberta govt to cover-up Encana’s secrets, lies & frac crimes; Supreme Court of Canada in the cover-up business too? Top Court signs pact to keep records of deliberations secret for at least 50 years; Reserves right to keep some secret forever
To Honour the Fallen on Remembrance Day: Make public AER’s secret “D79 Abandoned Well Methane Toxicity Preliminary Assessment” & Appendix 2 by Alberta Health, Admitting “Acute-Life threatening” risks & “Neurological effects”
Encana’s fracking fluid blows out nearby Parko Oil well in New Mexico, Encana promises to but does not pay the cleanup costs
TINY DOSES OF GAS DRILLING CHEMICALS MAY HAVE BIG HEALTH EFFECTS
EPA Investigation report details toxic chemicals at Statoil Frac Site Explosion; Chemicals spilled into Opossum Creek – 70,000 fish killed; Ohio Regulator says safe to drink the water
1.1.2.2 Description of Threat
Over 16 different chemicals products were staged on the Pad at the time of the explosion and subsequent fire. Materials present on the Pad included but was not limited to: diesel fuel, hydraulic oil, motor oil, hydrochloric acid, cesium-137 sources, hydrotreated light petroleum distillates, terpenes, terpenoids, isoproponal, ethylene glycol, paraffinic solvents, sodium persulfate, tributyl tetradecyl phosphonium chloride and proprietary components. As a result of fire-fighting efforts and flow back from the well head, significant quantities of water and unknown quantities of products on the well pad left the Site and entered an unnamed tributary of Opossum Creek that ultimately discharges to the Ohio River. Runoff left the pad at various locations via sheet flow as well as by two catch basins located at the northwest and southeast corners of the well pad.
Fracking’s More Dangerous Bedfellow: Acidizing
Fracking giant Halliburton nixes North Carolina’s chemical disclosure rule
The Case against Fracking: Forensic Chemist Weighs In
Quebec’s Premier Declares Province-wide Shale Gas Ban after Environmental Review Board (BAPE) says Fracking Not Worth The Risk, “Too many negative consequences to the environment and society…risks to air and water quality…noise and light pollution”
Harper government enabling the frac harm cover up? Environment Canada criticized for leaving fracking chemicals off pollutant list saying not enough frac chemicals used – 362,000 litres of diesel invert lost underground near Alberta family home
Amazing New study: Hazardous Chemicals Go Unregulated in Routine Oil and Gas Operations. Chemical regulations that govern hydraulic fracturing do not apply to numerous other uses of same chemicals on oil & gas development fields. (The toxic secrecy is much worse in Canada)
Air Pollutants From Fracking, Acidizing Threaten Public Health, Report Says; Oil Companies Used More than 45 Million Pounds of Toxic Chemicals in Los Angeles Area Over Past Year
MUST READ Diana Daunheimer: Alberta Energy Regulator should be ashamed, AER Directive 60 Deregulation as the frac poisons ramp up
Holding One’s Own on Lost Circulation: “Some of the fluids they are drilling with are extremely toxic, diesel-based muds”
Extreme Levels of Benzene Floating Around Gas Wells and Compressor Stations
Oil & gas industry’s fracking is “perfectly safe” lie explodes by homes, yet again: Ohio, Belmont County, XTO Well pad explosion, fire forces 1 mile mandatory evacuation area; Families & businesses within 2 miles urged to evacuate, 2/3s of Village of Powhatan
Talisman frackwater pit in NE BC leaked for months, kept from public; Are Talisman, the energy regulator and BC government lying when they claim groundwater never contaminated by fracking in BC?
Legal Fractures in Chemical Disclosure Laws, Why the Voluntary Chemical Disclosure Registry FracFocus Fails as a Regulatory Compliance Tool
Colorado docs chafe at secrecy oath needed for access to chemical list
Legal loophole keeps fracturing mixes murky
Wanna know what’s in that fracking fluid? Tough
North Carolina legislators look to criminalize disclosure of fracking fluids; Group considers suing to stop fracking; “How could they ask us to subsidize our own demise?”
Fracking Beyond the Law: Despite Industry Denials, Investigation Reveals Continued Use of Diesel in Hydraulic Fracturing
Alberta is a Fracking Black Hole for Information! Since 2006, Ernst has been trying to get disclosure of the chemicals Encana injected into her community’s drinking water aquifers and elsewhere, with zero success, not even for her lawsuit, Alberta Rules of Court do not allow trade secrets but no authority is compelling Encana to disclose the information
Rocky View County Alberta: Municipal councilors fail to support clean air and water, Voted clean air and water out of bounds, OK for frac’ers to poison families and environment
Firefighters: Increased disclosure needed for fracking emergencies: “Not requiring fracking companies to disclose trade secret chemicals to those we entrust with our safety, even during a disaster, is just plain irresponsible.”
Industrial Strength: How U.S. Govt Hid Fracking’s Risks to Drinking Water, A pivotal EPA study provided rationale for exemptions that helped unleash the fracking boom. Science suppressed to protect industry interests
Is Aqua America trying to cover-up frac contamination with chlorine? Chisholm Springs (community in Barnett Shale) drinking water making residents sick, burning skin, pleas for help go unheeded just like in every toxic frac field, including in Alberta. Will oil & gas companies fully disclose all drilling, cementing, perforating, fracing, servicing chemicals, including trade secrets, so that Aqua America can properly test the water?
Albertans still don’t know what toxic oilfield chemicals their children are breathing. When will companies be ordered to fully disclose all chemicals, including trade secrets, before racing toxic truck loads through school zones, by hospitals, where children play, and before injected, spilled, dumped, spread on foodlands, flared, vented, spewed from endless facilities?
Big Legal Victory in Pennsylvania: Supreme Court rules 2012 law unfairly gave frackers illegal “special” treatment; Declares Act 13 an unconstitutional “special law” benefiting specific groups or industries, including its “physician gag order” restricting health-care professionals from getting information about chemicals that could harm their patients
Federal court dismisses doctor’s lawsuit over Pennsylvania’s Act 13 “gag rule”
Dr. Alfonso Rodriguez challenging Pennsylvania’s Act 13 Gag Rule which prohibits disclosure of frac chemicals, even by doctors treating patients poisoned by fracing unless they sign strict confidentiality agreements
“The public has a right to know”: Fracking companies don’t have to disclose chemicals linked to health concerns
Chesapeake seeks to seal court documents from public, wants court to permanently seal more than 30 documents, saying they contain crucial trade secrets
FracFocusFraud? New Study from journal Energy Policy: Industry increasingly using trade secrets to limit disclosure
Pennsylvania: Cecil Township warns about 50 residents of potential water contamination near Range Resources Frac Pit after regulator refuses to
PA DEP: September Drilling Communication Event Contaminated Drinking Water in Doddridge County, Proves drilling, perforating, acidizing, fracing, cavitation, servicing chemicals must be fully disclosed – without trade secrets – before any activity, not just frac chemicals long after fracing
Judge denies Range Resources’ testing request because company still hasn’t complied with court order to disclose frac chemicals, including those proprietary
Superior Court hears arguments on release of frac chemicals; Range Resources appealing 2013 Court Order to release all chemicals
Recent court rulings: Range Resources responsible for disclosing chemicals; In best position to get chemical list, including trade secrets [But still didn’t release them]
Range Resources Appeal to keep Frac Chemicals Secret in Pa Lawsuit Denied; PA Superior Court Orders Range Resources, Halliburton, et al to divulge frac fluid ingredients…Again
EPA Investigation report details toxic chemicals at Statoil Frac Site Explosion; Chemicals spilled into Opossum Creek – 70,000 fish killed; Ohio Regulator says safe to drink the water
United States: Fracking Trade Secret Rules: A Tug Of War Without Winners
Magic Frac Mocus: Federal task force chairman says trade secret claims hurt industry
Northest Territories fracking water license allows for company to keep ‘trade secrets’
Alberta announces new cancer-care plan, but won’t stop hydraulic fracturing or disallow trade secrets of the toxic chemicals injected
California Fracking Rules Plan Stirs Trade Secrets Fight
“Justice” system loves a good cover-up? Parents of Rocky View public school district student strangled by non-breakaway lanyard (donated by a corporation), settle lawsuit, keep dollar amount secret. Media seeks gag opened; Alberta court slams the door shut to ensure others filing lawsuits settle ‘n gag too, knowingly keeping the public (and our children) in harms away
The DEregulation goes on and on and on: Conventional Oil & Gas Industry Major 2019 Goal: To Restore Program To Spread Well Waste Water On Roads (without oversight and keeping toxic chemical contents secret)
Another study after frac harms already done, and hiding the toxic drilling, cementing, perfing, servicing and secret frac chemicals
EPA Frac Investigation: Most Drillers Keep Chemicals Secret in Fracfocus; “One or more ingredients were claimed confidential in more than 70% of disclosures”
US Department of Energy Advisory Board Task Force Report on FracFocus 2.0 concludes 84% of disclosures kept secrets
ConocoPhillips chemical data falls short, releases same report as previously, keeps some frac chemicals secret and does not list drilling, servicing, perforating
WHAT NEXT?! “Clean Earth Inc” applying to DEP to store and use “treated” drilling waste for expansion of Johnson Airport, Tioga County
Pennsylvania DEP: Range Resources Inc.’s fracking waste pits contaminated groundwater and soil at three Washington County sites
Study: Oil Gas Industry Wastewater spread on roads to control dust & ice in at least 13 states, including Pennsylvania, poses threat to environment & human health; Ohio regulator tests on Aquasalina/Nature’s Own Source (made with frac waste, spread on roads, sold at Lowes and to cities for years) showed combined radium 226 & 228 exceeded USEPA Safe Drinking Water limits by average factor of 300
Frac’d Bakken Oil: Abnormal ‘strength of the fire’ puzzles investigators, Lac Megantic oil spill size remains company secret, confidentiality agreement with Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway keeps spill size covered up
Halliburton’s Dirty Secrets Pumped Into WV?
There are practical reasons for not treating the fracking formulas like CIA secrets, Wyrostok pointed out.
“Say a truck going through a town in West Virginia crashes or ruptures, and no one knows what the chemicals are. How do the first responders react to that? They don’t know what’s in that truck.”
Landowners have a hard time testing their well water for contaminates if they don’t know what they’re looking for, he said, noting that doctors would have to ask the companies what chemicals might be making their patients sick. No one knows how long the company might take to respond, Wyrostok said, or even if it would. Plus, if the doctors find out what the chemicals are, the new rule would forbid them from telling anyone, he added. “Basically, it’s a gag order,” he said.
Fracking chemicals shouldn’t be kept secret
Fracking Loophole “Big Enough To Drive A Mack Truck Through”, Fracking Secrets by Thousands Keep U.S. Clueless on Wells
Groups upset at Wyoming’s shield for industry fracking secrets
Potentially harmful fracking chemicals are considered secrets
Wyoming regulators keep 146 fracking chemicals secret
Voluntary Fracking Reporting? Bloomberg: Chemicals Not Reported, Half of All Wells “Obscured”
Medical muzzling: Fracking-related gag order on doctors must be changed
Fracking Hazards Obscured In Failure To Disclose Wells
State’s ‘Medical Gag Rule’ Called An Illegal Gift to Gas Drillers
The hidden health risks of fracking, Nurses demand disclosure of chemicals used in natural gas drilling
The 10 Scariest Chemicals Used In Hydraulic Fracking
Fracking companies don’t have to disclose chemicals linked to health concerns
New York signs law prohibiting fracking, and oil, natural gas waste in city; Alberta & other jurisdictions allow it dumped in landfills, on roads, leases, near communities and water ways (perhaps in them, who’s checking?). NORM increasing because of unconventional oil & gas, “has become a much more significant health, safety and environmental issue”
New York State to ban fracking because of red flags to public health. Health Commissioner Howard Zucker: “Would I let my child play in a school field nearby? After looking at the plethora of reports, my answer would be no.”
Documents show EPA health concerns on frac chemicals kept secret, approved for use by companies near families & communities anyways: Intentional Environmental Racism by Regulators? Against everyone living frac’d?
England: Medact’s updated Public Health Assessment on Shale Gas Production concludes: “Significant health hazards are unavoidably associated with SGP and present real risks to the health and wellbeing of surrounding, local communities.”
Fracking might be as damaging as thalidomide, tobacco and asbestos, UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser warns in new report: “In all these and many other cases, delayed recognition of adverse effects incurred not only serious environmental or health impacts, but massive expense”
Anadarko Petroleum settles U.S.-wide clean-up and health harm lawsuit for $5.15 billion, US Bankruptcy judge ruled the company should pay 19.35 billion and legal fees; Settlement ensures that: “Anadarko was not found to have done anything wrong.”
Baytex Finally Successful, Gags & Settles Poisoned Alberta Families: Does a lawyer-touted “positive outcome” of displacing and gagging poisoned families, stop the poisoning? “Our house is contaminated…there’s a smell now…Part of the torture of all this is not only abandoning our farm, but the health experts…told us we shouldn’t bring anything (with us).”
Health report: some Alberta doctors refused to treat families exposed to toxic emissions by Baytex in Peace Country, one lab refused to process a test
Where are the regulators in Alberta? Fed up with toxic fumes: families suffering ill health ask Peace River court for 8 month injunction to shut down 46 wells and 86 venting tanks owned by Baytex Energy
Alberta family, the Daunheimers near Didsbury, suing Angle Energy for $13 million for causing harm to health, property, financial status, personal safety and water
Big oil, big fracing, big problems? The Hawkwoods frac’d in the Lochend: health problems, dead cattle and earthquakes causing property damage
What Lies Beneath: CCTV America Investigation into Hydraulic Fracturing Interviews Alberta landowners, including former oil engineer, fracing fumes damaging health
With law violations, hazards, waste dumping, air noise land water pollution, permanent water loss, community division, adverse health impacts, lies, fatalities, enabling regulators politicians courts, massive subsidies, PR Panel urges industry to change frac ‘conversation’
The Ultimate Frac Fraud? In EPA Draft Frac Report: “700 pages (24,000 lines) presenting the potential impacts of hydraulic fracturing on water resources and human health but only 2 lines concluding that it is not a universal problem”
****
And why the need to keep toxic, carcinogenic drilling and frac’ing chemicals secret, as they get dumped on our foodlands, into waterways and drinking water aquifers, onto roads, in parks, vented into our air, harm workers, first responders and hospital workers etc?
Compendium 6 Released: Review by doctors & scientists of more than 1,700 references conclude frac industry poses threat to air, water, climate and human health
Concerned Health Professionals Ireland call for frac ban: ‘Extremely strong” evidence fracking harms human health
Another New Peer-Reviewed, Published Frac Health Harm Review: Harmful chemicals used in, produced by unconventional oil & gas pose serious threat to infants & children
New Report: World governments make citizens pay billions to destroy their own health
Prevent Cancer Now calls out AER’s Health Fraud! “The AER has no jurisdiction for human health, and Alberta is famed for a chill against the medical community linking ill health to petrochemicals.”
Pennsylvania Study Links Fracking to Health Hazards in Fetuses, Infants, Young Children: 35.1% more cancer in children ages zero to four in heavily frac’d counties. Compare to AER’s belittling, dismissive health study in the Lochend
Another new study showing frac harms to health: Hydraulic fracturing linked to increases in hospitalization rates in the Marcellus Shale
Where were Alberta’s Chief Medical Officers of Health, including Dr. Nicolas Bayliss? Where was Dr. James Talbot’s “tremendous passion and knowledge” refusing to help Albertans poisoned by fracing, not warning others they’re next?
Why was a 2012 Health Canada Report, admitting significant health hazards and risks to groundwater and air from hydraulic fracturing, kept from the public? And still keeps it from the public?
Pollution could be damaging your brain, even leading to dementia but Health Canada still not making public their 2012 damning report admitting significant health hazards and risks to groundwater and air caused by frac’ing!
Hypocrites! Health Canda wants “expanded powers” to strengthen regulation of natural health products but not toxic frac chemicals – not even to make companies disclose their secret frac brews to families breathing them! Not even to disclose Health Canada’s own frac health hazard report!
CEPA, Canada’s main environmental law isn’t working. Of course it isn’t, the oil and gas industry is largely exempt while emissions of the most harmful chemicals are on the rise. Live in a frac field? Hold your breath, don’t drink the water.
ERCB (now AER) and AESRD [“Alberta Health Couldn’t make it”] on fracking
Alberta Health is too cowardly to show up to public information meetings on the harms of frac’ing and refuses to answer emailed questions too! (email hidden; JavaScript is required is Ernst’s email)
Alberta Health Services Warning: Drinking water contamination in Kneehill County: Toxic Selenium and Uranium found in private water wells; Metals testing not mandatory before fracing, waste dumping and injection, not even when companies frac into drinking water aquifers
More than 50 Woodland families with toxic water after nearby frac’ing, Headleys, McIntyres and other families file nuisance lawsuits after suffering health harm, toxic fumes, visual, noise and other impacts from drilling, frac’ing and facilities
Australia: Local doctor talks of ‘catastrophic’ CSG (CBM) health impact
Queensland’s Health Minister Springborg refuses to drink Coal Seam Gas water
Elevated Cancer risks surround oil & gas drilling. Fracking is bad for your health says Israel Health Ministry official; Frac flowback stage causes greatest air pollution; WORLD-WIDE STUDY: One in three strokes caused by air pollution
Frac Company Trican Donates $5 Million to Fight Childhood Cancer
Massachusetts Senate Passes 10-Year Moratorium on Fracking and Disposal of Frac Wastewater in the Commonwealth. Senate President: “Fracking releases harmful chemicals into our air while contaminating fresh groundwater, causing seismic events, flaring methane and severely harming public health.”
Pinellas County Florida unanimously votes to ban fracking; Cites harm to environment, air pollution, damage to Floridan Aquifer, health problems as main reasons
Wales Assembly Votes 37 to 16 to Oppose Fracing; Scottish Government Imposes Frac Moratorium Over Health and Environmental Impacts
British lawmakers demand freeze on fracing, Environmental Audit Committee releases frac report summarizing significant environmental risks to Public Health
Three legislative proposals now in Republic of Ireland to ban Fracking: Tony McLoughlin tables private members bill: “To protect Ireland’s onshore and internal waters, our climate and, as such, Irish citizens’ public health from the damaging effects of exploration and extraction of onshore petroleum
Fouth county in Calfornia bans fracking: Ban passes with overwhelming 71 percent.”When our Governor and local elected officials fail to act, voters are taking the initiative at the ballot box to protect their health and their water from fracking”
Why Did New York State Ban Fracking? Massive study finds health, safety and environmental uncertainties regarding fracking’s dangers have ‘grown worse over time’
Only a frac ban will protect health, livability in Denton Texas; Frac regulations poison us, “There is no escaping the harmful chemicals. … We feel like prisoners in our own home.”
Sounds like Alberta! Pennsylvania health officials ordered to ignore fracking-related health complaints, Former Department of Health employees say they were forbidden to talk about drilling
Alberta Government, regulators, health agency and company silent for years as groundwater contamination spreads and families poisoned
Sulfolane (used to sweeten sour gas) leak at Bonavita Energy’s South Rosevear Gas Plant, Edson Alberta, contaminated drinking water, severe health harm experienced by Mersadese Royale, her husband and children; Family evicted after raising concerns publicly
Fracing’s long reach: New Study says Fracking Wells Could Pollute The Air Hundreds Of Miles Away
Secondhand Smoke: “Pollution from our fracking wells in Pennsylvania may be drifting down to Maryland, raising ethane levels in the state to unhealthy levels”
Frac’ing could threaten air quality, workers’ and public health, University of Maryland report says
More peer-reviewed studies indicating health harm from fracing and natural gas production, Dogs “found to be particularly sensitive, suggesting both health concerns for the animals and new ways to track pollution through animals’ exposures”
British Columbia’s answer to escalating Frac Health Harms? More doctors and cut funding to North East Oil and Gas Health Advisory Committee? “The very committee pushing for answers is effectively being forced to fold”
British Columbia’s Ministry Health withholding data, report of scientific research on how oil and gas operations are affecting human health in northeast communities; Refusing to release even under FOIP: “could be harmful to the financial interest of a public body”
Special Issue of Journal Environmental Science and Health, Part A: Toxic/Hazardous Substances and Environmental Engineering: Facing the Challenges – Research on Shale Gas Extraction
Queensland Australia: Another new study shows unconventional gas industry pollution: Air Pollution and human health hazards: a compilation of air toxins acknowledged by gas industry in Queensland’s Darling Downs. As expected and as usual, industry name calls the scientist, Geralyn McCarron, “activist” to try to discredit her and her alarming paper
New Study Says Fracking Negatively Impacts Infant Health. New Low for Marcellus Shale Coalition: “….it’s dangerously misleading and inflammatory to suggest that natural gas development has done anything but improve public health.”
The Journal of the American Medical Association Publishes Concerns about Fracking Contaminating Air and Drinking Water, and Harming Human Health!
Fracking chemical used in US linked to organ damage
UK: 143 health professionals urge PM Theresa May to ban frac’ing
Are oil and gas companies such pathetic cowards they need to silence medical doctors reporting health harms from industry’s toxic pollution? “He was about to [release] his results…and then they fire him.”
TINY DOSES OF GAS DRILLING CHEMICALS MAY HAVE BIG HEALTH EFFECTS, Authors of new study encourage more low-dose testing of endocrine-disrupting chemicals, with implications for the debate on natural gas drilling
Fracking effects: A long-term study of drilling’s impact shows harmful health effects
New peer-reviewed, published study by Lisa McKenzie et al, U Colorado School of Public Health: Childhood cancer linked to nearby oil and gas activity; People ages 5-24 diagnosed with acute lymphocytic leukemia more likely to live in areas with a high concentration of oil and gas activity
Yale School of Public Health: Fracking Linked to Cancer-Causing Chemicals; Pennsylvanians Against Fracking Call on Governor Wolf to Implement Statewide Moratorium on Fracking
Double Frac Fraud! North Hollow Pennsylvania One Year Later, Compare to Rosebud Alberta Twelve Years Later: Officials Found Drilling Chemicals in Public Water, But Told No One
8-year frac health study shows fracking associated with increased asthma attacks: “Those who lived closer to a large number or bigger active natural gas wells were significantly more likely…to suffer asthma attacks” … “The highest risk for asthma attacks occurred in people living a median of about 12 miles from drilled wells. The lowest risk was for people living a median of about 40 miles away.”
First Study of Its Kind Detects 44 Hazardous Air Pollutants at Gas Drilling Sites, With gas wells in some states being drilled near schools and homes, scientists see a need for better chemical disclosure laws and follow-up research
Another new study proving oil and gas companies are fracing freshwater formations: “As many as one of every five oil and gas projects occurs in underground sources of fresh water”
Another New Peer-Reviewed, Published Frac Health Harm Review: Harmful chemicals used in, produced by unconventional oil & gas pose serious threat to infants & children
New Texas study: UTA research demonstrates groundwater quality changes alongside increasing unconventional oil & gas development: “They discovered the presence of chlorinated solvents, alcohols and aromatic compounds exclusively after multiple unconventional oil wells had been activated within five kilometers of the sampling sites.”
The Bie Lie Unravels: Scientists Digiulio & Jackson Slam EPA For “Walking Away” From Pavillion Frac Pollution Study in 2011 (Alberta regulators, gov’t walked from Rosebud frac pollution in 2008, never enforced Encana’s 2004 law violations), Encana’s fracking contaminated underground water reservoirs in Wyoming, finds study by former EPA scientist who led preliminary investigation. EPA never followed up
Is Frac Focus More Bogus? Harvard Law School EPI Director Publishes FracFocus Findings: “Rates of withheld chemical ingredients are increasing”
Alberta to start using FracFocus BC uses the trade secret enabling gimmick too.
West Virginia truck driver, Russell Evans, suing Range Resources over injury claim: ordered to keep working in wet clothes after splashed with flowback water, suffered chemical burns, blisters, rashes
Hormone-disrupting chemicals found in ground and surface water at fracking sites, Peer reviewed study of fracking sites in Garfield County Colorado finds chemicals linked to infertility, birth defects and cancer
More than 100 orgs, 800 individuals push PA Gov. Tom Wolf to probe link between frac’ing and proliferation of childhood cancers; Ewing Sarcoma Presentation by Raina Rippel
Salon interviews researchers Bamberger and Oswald: Fracking’s untold health threat: How toxic contamination is destroying lives, America’s natural gas boom has real consequences for children, animals, food and water
In Effort to Protect Public Health, Groups Seek Fracking Chemical Information
Elaine Hill interview on her research that was attacked by frac industry; One of the first scholarly explorations of health harm caused by fracing
Elaine Hill: The Impact of Oil and Gas Extraction on Infant Health in Colorado
Elaine Hill: Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Infant Health: Evidence from Pennsylvania
Fracking Truth to Fracking Power
Elaine Hill: Link Between Low Birth Weight and Fracking, Says New Research
New Brunswick Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Cleary speaks out on shale gas report after government says it will be kept confidential
Shale gas report by health officer may remain secret, Dr. Eilish Cleary looked at potential health impacts of the shale gas industry
Fracking causes serious health and environmental problems – report
Natural Gas Operations from a Public Health Perspective by Theo Colborn et al, 2010
For many years, drillers have insisted that they do not use toxic chemicals to drill for gas, only guar gum, mud, and sand. While much attention is being given to chemicals used during fracking, our findings indicate that drilling chemicals can be equally, if not more dangerous.
A Colossal Fracking Mess: The dirty truth behind the new natural gas
The Big Secret? Fracking Fluids
In 2008, Cathy Behr, a Colorado emergency room nurse at Durango Mercy Regional Medical Center was working the day shift when a gas driller worker, Clinton Marshall, arrived complaining of nausea and headaches.
Marshall had spilled “fracturing fluid” on his clothes and boots and the smell apparently was overpowering and sufficiently strong that they evacuated the emergency room.
Cathy Behr, without protection, had meanwhile spent just ten minutes tending to Mr. Marshall. A few days after this ER visit, Behr appeared jaundiced and began vomiting fluid and having difficulty breathing.
Behr’s husband took her back to the emergency room where she was diagnosed with multiple organ failure, including liver failure, respiratory distress and erratic blood counts. She was admitted to the ICU with the presumptive diagnosis of poisoning from an unknown chemical. The chemical was and is still considered to be a proprietary formula by the producer, Halliburton, a gas industry leader. It was later revealed to be a product with the trade name, Zetaflow. Halliburton noted that Zetaflow increases gas production by 30% and threatened that it would pull its secret sauce out of Colorado if it was forced to reveal what was in it. …
The law exempts gas companies from disclosing the nature of contaminants from fracking flowback which are often laden with toxic heavy metals or radioactive isotopes. The modus operandi of the gas industry is tied to non-disclosure and confidentiality agreements, making research into the health effects of fracking virtually impossible. In a world where we insist on evidence-based medicine, we prohibit this when it comes to gas drilling chemicals.
2008: A Toxic Spew: The near death – by frac chemicals – of emergency room nurse Cathy Behr collection of articles
2008: Gas industry secrets and a nurse’s story
[An] emergency room nurse named Cathy Behr wanted to tell Colorado’s Oil and Gas Conservation Commission the story of how she nearly died after being exposed to a mystery chemical from a gas-patch accident. Regulators said she wasn’t scheduled to testify and they didn’t want to hear it. But anyone concerned about natural gas development should listen.
Behr, who works in southern Colorado, at Durango’s Mercy Regional Medical Center,
fell ill last April after being exposed for 10 minutes to a gas-field worker who had come
into the ER, his clothes damp and reeking. He’d come into contact with one of the
“secret formulas” drillers use to hydraulically fracture oil- and gas-bearing formations. Within minutes of inhaling the nauseating fumes coming off the worker, Behr lost her sense of smell. (She later told her story to the Durango Herald, a daily paper that has done excellent reporting on the incident: durangoherald.com.) The ER was locked down and the room ventilated by firefighters. But when Behr went home after her 12-hour
shift, she still couldn’t smell anything. Then the headache she’d developed got worse. A week later, her liver, heart and lungs began to shut down. She spent 30 hours in intensive care. Although the company that makes the frac’ing fluid provided Behr’s doctors with what it calls “‘Material Data Safety Sheets”‘ at the time of the incident, it refused to provide more specific information to the hospital once she fell ill, according to the Herald.
Her intensive-care doctor had to guess what to do as he tried to keep her alive.
