Livestock falling ill in fracking regions
Jacki Schilke
This cow on Jacki Schilke’s ranch in northeast North Dakota lost most of its tail, one of many ailments that afflicted her cattle after hydrofracturing, or fracking, began in the nearby Bakken Shale.
By Elizabeth Royte
Food & Environment Reporting Network
In the midst of the domestic energy boom, livestock on farms near oil- and gas-drilling operations nationwide have been quietly falling sick and dying. 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.
Earlier this year, Michelle Bamberger, an Ithaca, N.Y., 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,” describes how scores of animals died over the course of several years. Fracking industry proponents challenged the study, since the authors neither identified the farmers nor ran controlled experiments to determine how specific fracking compounds might affect livestock.
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 said. “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 exposed to fracking chemicals.
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 2009, 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, 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 said, “I won’t sell them because I don’t know if they’re OK.”
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.
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Bloomberg Speaking Out in Support of Fracking
By Joseph De Avila
- AP
- Actor Mark Ruffalo, center, joined the New Yorkers Against Fracking rally in Albany in May.
As New York prepares to release new regulations for high-volume hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is stepping forward to support the controversial gas extraction method.
After praising the process in a Washington Post op-ed, Bloomberg defended his position at a news conference Tuesday.
“Fracking has been around for 50 or 60 years,” Bloomberg said. “All of a sudden, it’s fashionable. It is changed. It’s gotten better and you get a lot more efficiency from it today.”
Bloomberg cited the health hazards associated with coal and dismissed the solar and wind industries as “not viable.” That leaves natural gas as the best option for a domestic energy source, Bloomberg said.
“So, for a practical point of view, you either are going to have coal spewing stuff into the air or you’re going to use natural gas,” Bloomberg said. “If you’re going to use natural gas, it will be gotten out by fracking. Anybody that thinks you can do it without that just doesn’t understand how it works.”
In 2008, the state Department of Environmental Conservation began an environmental review of fracking. The DEC is expected to release new fracking regulations by the end of the year.
The fracking debate is taking place in several states across the U.S. and local towns across New York have been taking sides on the contentious issue. About 135 municipalities have passed fracking bans and moratoria on the practice. About 60 other towns and villages have passed resolutions in favor of the method or against the idea of a ban.
Fracking opponents say the method’s environmental risks outweigh any of the benefits of having more natural gas. Pro-fracking groups say that natural gas extraction would bring an economic windfall to struggling communities near New York and Pennsylvania border where drilling would be concentrated.
Bloomberg said the process could be done safely–as long it wasn’t done near drinking water sources. “We should not do it in our watershed, nor anybody else’s. But other than that, I don’t see anything wrong with it,” he said.
But opposition to fracking remains fierce in New York. On Monday, more than 1,000 anti-fracking demonstrators rallied in Albany, calling on Gov. Andrew Cuomo to permanently ban the practice in New York.
More celebrities have also joined anti-fracking groups. Earlier this week, Yoko Ono and her son Sean Lennon formed a group called Artists Against Fracking that counts Alec Baldwin, Hugh Jackman and Anne Hathaway as members.
Michael Howard Saul contributed to this report
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Neighbors look at the sinkhole, which was more than 30 feet wide and 12 feet deep
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