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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: 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?