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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: 3, Interesting) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday August 30 2016, @05:53PM
There is actually a large bacteria ecosystem throughout the Earth's crust, and there could be widespread ramifications. We really know so little about dynamics behind the entire Earth's ecosystems, and green lighting things like fracking amounts to ecological gambling. Hopefully no big issues come of it, but the idea of sealing away problems underground isn't without risk.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Tuesday August 30 2016, @06:50PM
You can say that about literally everything. Meanwhile, we've been fracking for 60 years. In this time how many massive ecological disasters can you recall that are related to coal and oil? Deepwater Horizon alone has done more harm to the environment than 60 years of fracking. Every single year burning coal releases more radiation into the environment than every nuke disaster ever.
And, according to the IEA: ...the burning of natural gas in the U.S. since 2005 has prevented 1 billion metric tons of CO2 from being emitted into the atmosphere. Use of renewables has prevented 600 million metric tons of CO2 emissions in the same timeframe.