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Water contaminated with some of the chemicals found in drinking water and fracking wastewater has been shown to affect hormone levels in mice:
More than 15 million Americans live within a one-mile radius of unconventional oil and gas (UOG) operations. UOGs combine directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," to release natural gas from underground rock. Scientific studies, while ongoing, are still inconclusive on the potential long-term effects fracturing has on human development. Today, researchers at the University of Missouri released a study that is the first of its kind to link exposure to chemicals released during hydraulic fracturing to adverse reproductive and developmental outcomes in mice. Scientists believe that exposure to these chemicals also could pose a threat to human development.
"Researchers have previously found that endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) mimic or block hormones — the chemical messengers that regulate respiration, reproduction, metabolism, growth and other biological functions," said Susan C. Nagel, Nagel, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and women's health in the School of Medicine. "Evidence from this study indicates that developmental exposure to fracking and drilling chemicals may pose a threat to fertility in animals and potentially people. Negative outcomes were observed even in mice exposed to the lowest dose of chemicals, which was lower than the concentrations found in groundwater at some locations with past oil and gas wastewater spills."
Researchers mixed 23 oil and gas chemicals in four different concentrations to reflect concentrations ranging from those found in drinking water and groundwater to concentrations found in industry wastewater. The mixtures were added to drinking water given to pregnant mice in the laboratory until they gave birth. The female offspring of the mice that drank the chemical mixtures were compared to female offspring of mice in a control group that were not exposed. Mice exposed to drilling chemicals had lower levels of key hormones related to reproductive health compared to the control group.
Adverse Reproductive and Developmental Health Outcomes Following Prenatal Exposure to a Hydraulic Fracturing Chemical Mixture in Female C57Bl/6 Mice (open, DOI: 10.1210/en.2016-1242) (DX)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 30 2016, @03:01PM
Its a strange paper in that the list of pollution chemicals was taken from another paper (with permission) and I clicked thru and read supplemental table 1 and nothing as near as I can tell was discovered about those chemicals ... I mean, yeah, "we" already knew that drinking benzene is probably not wise, ditto toluene or xylene and many of the other fun organics in the table. So slapping "I am a bottle of fracing chemical" on a bottle of benzene, then drinking it, is unsurprisingly going to lead to the same biochemical problems as drinking from an unlabeled bottle of benzene.
I guess maybe by analogy something like the hangover you get from drinking vodka has nothing to do with drinking out of a bottle out in the open or drinking out of a bottle in a brown paper bag wino style or drinking the vodka out of a carefully refilled plastic drinking water bottle. Unsurprisingly its going to be pretty much the same hangover. You can villify the wino lifestyle and try to ban brown paper bags, but you haven't really "discovered" anything by running either the experiment or the PR campaign of a paper.
There's nothing "fracing" related about the results. If I dumped a barrel of benzene into the local drinking water lake source, its not like the result would be any different if I slapped a marketing sticker on the barrel first thats labeled "great for hydrofrac gas wells" and then dumped the same barrel of benzene into the local drinking water lake source.
There are two interesting points about the problems of fracing
1) Victim of its own success its like biker gangs in the 80s making speed it was a huge bubble and the .gov took time to react. Now the precursors are pretty well regulated and it still goes on, but its not quite the wild west it used to be. Ditto the fracing experience, until the frac bubble popped, growth was beyond explosive and essentially unregulated due to being too new. During the frac downturn the few players still in business had to cut every corner to stay in business leading to industrial waste dumping. In summary its not new anymore and not bubble anymore which means rather rapidly bad behavior is going to be snuffed. Like most of the fracing contamination that is going to happen in the life of the planet has already happened.
2) Its just industrial waste dumping on a large distributed somewhat unregulated scale. There's nothing fracing specific. If I were a chromium plater dumping barrels of solvent it wouldn't be any worse or better for the victims ... oh wait if I were a chromium plater I'd never get away with it, see above. But the point is people fighting some abstract "fracing" don't understand (willfully?) and its not helping. They need to fight dumping of industrial organic waste, which is the actual problem. Fracing as a business that does not involve dumping the barrels out on the ground at the end of the day to save money is not inherently a problem. What is inherently a problem with fracing is apparently the earthquake problem. You can take the industrial waste dumping out of fracing without any technical problem (well, financial maybe) but you can't take the earthquake out of the fracing.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 30 2016, @04:52PM
It's rare indeed when VLM and DeathMonkey agree on an issue. Perhaps it's a situation that at least merits consideration?
For the record, I have 15 years professional experience in Environmental Compliance and Remediation. I spent 5 years of my life installing one of the first active (e.g. chemical) stormwater filtration systems that removes about a ton per year of heavy metals (mostly lead) from previously uncontrolled stormwater runoff. So I've personally experienced and had a direct impact on the protection of our precious surface waters.
As IT people, when you cringe a bit because of enhance-enhance-rotate-enhance on a security video on a TV show. I cringe a bit when I hear the arguments against fracking.
Sure, there are challenges, but it's the only way forward to reduce pollution and greenhouse gasses in the near term.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:45PM
How will fracking reduce pollution and greenhouse gases in the near term?
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 30 2016, @06:31PM
How will fracking reduce pollution and greenhouse gases in the near term?
It already has!
IEA: Thanks to Natural Gas, U.S. Energy-Related Carbon Emissions Fell 2 Percent in 2015 [energyindepth.org]
(Score: 1) by Francis on Tuesday August 30 2016, @11:43PM
Not really, how much would it have gone down if the cost of gas and natural gas hadn't been depressed by the fracking? Or how about a comparison against the situation if the oil companies weren't continually sabotaging efforts at getting off our oil addiction? 2% is a pretty tiny amount for it to drop.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by bob_super on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:58PM
I guess the primary difference that people perceive is that fracking is distributed waste dumping, whereas traditional waste dumping had a fence around it in the ugly part of town.
It's new, it's chemical, it's done by traditionally unpleasant people who are not transparent about the procedures and the contingencies, it's a lot of sudden money and a lot of dirty trucks, using lots of water even in places under drought, all in people's "backyards" ... All you need to change legitimate concerns into outright hysteria.
The fracking industry could have made their own lives easier by being open to scrutiny.
Whether fracking is actually more dangerous than the toxins those people had been exposed to from the farms is not obvious. But the good farmer feeds America, while the greedy oil barons pollute the Earth, right?