Cornell Study Links Fracking Wastewater with Mortality in Farm Animals

By Lockerz

EcoWatch.org
01-16-2012
John Messeder

It has been a rough week for the shale industry. Earthquakes have been tied to a deep wastewater injection well and resulted in, among other things, demonstrations on the lawn of the Ohio Statehouse. And residents in rural central New York are organizing door-to-door petition drives to halt hydraulic fracturing —if not in their state, at least in Madison and Oneida Counties.


A recently completed study by two Cornell University researchers indicates the process of hydraulic fracturing deep shale to release natural gas may be linked to shortened lifespan and reduced or mutated reproduction in cattle—and maybe humans.

Fracking (the colloquial name for hydraulic fracturing), involves drilling a well about 8,000 feet down, and then up to about 13,000 feet horizontally. Three to five million gallons of fresh water, specially formulated sand and up to 250,000 gallons of chemicals, some of them highly toxic, are poured into the well at great pressure, breaking the deep shale and releasing the coveted gas.

Without knowing exactly what chemicals are being used, and in what quantities, it is difficult to perform laboratory-style experiments on, say lab rats. But farm animals are captive, surrounded by electric and barbed wire fences.

And when fracking wastewater is spilled across their pasture and into their drinking water, and they start dying and birthing dead calves, one can become suspicious that there is a connection.
Which is what the Cornell researchers found during a year-long study of farm animals, based primarily on interviews with animal owners and veterinarians in six states: Colorado, Louisiana, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

“Animals can nevertheless serve as sentinels for human health impacts,” the report, titled Impacts of Gas Drilling on Human and Animal Health, notes. “Animals, particularly livestock, remain in a confined area and, in some cases, are continually exposed to an environmental threat.”

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At this time, we'd like to reassert our position and call the industry a bunch of liers.  We already knew and reported this. We asked questions to the industry to be told that everything is safe, the industry doesn't dump toxic produced water on the ground, animals don't have access to it, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, et cetera.

Professors Fight Over Fracking Impact

August 31, 2011
By Dennis Liu

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University released a study earlier this month on greenhouse gas emissions produced from hydraulic fracturing. The study challenges a similar study published by Cornell in May.

The study by Carnegie Mellon estimates that greenhouse gas emissions from shale gas is lower than emissions from coal burning by between 20 to 50 percent. The previous Cornell study said greenhouse gas emissions from shale gas were greater than coal emissions by 20 percent.

The new findings have energized the ongoing debate over the extraction of natural gas from wells underneath New York State through the controversial method known as “hydrofracking” — a technique where a chemical mixture is pumped into shale rock underneath the ground at high pressure to break apart rocks and release natural gas.

One of the authors of the Cornell study, Prof. Robert Howarth, ecology and environmental biology, explained the contradicting conclusions of the two studies by bringing attention to Carnegie Mellon’s use of data, which he called “internally inconsistent and poorly documented.”

Cornell’s study, conducted by Howarth, Prof. Anthony Ingraffea, civil and environmental engineering, and Renee Santoro, a research technician in ecology and evolutionary biology, has previously been used as a scientific reference for advocates against hydrofracking.

Their research determined that the shale gas released through hydrofracking generated life greenhouse gas emissions that were “at least 20 percent greater” than that of burning coal. This meant that using natural gas as a source of energy was “dirtier” than coal in respect to its environmental impact.

According to a University spokesperson, Carnegie Mellon’s research will in no way affect Cornell’s current ban against hydrofracking on its land, a policy that has been in place since 2010.

One significant difference in the Carnegie Mellon study was...

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Cornell study assessed climate change impact of natural gas drilling

Clearfield, PA, where a well blowout
in 2010 emitted wastefluid and natural
gas into the air for about 16 hours.

We at the Center for Healthy Environments and Communities would like to congratulate and recognize the incredible efforts of our colleagues at Cornell University for their recent research study published in Climate Change Letters, entitled "Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations." Led by Dr. Robert Howarth, the study sought to determine the effect that natural gas drilling in shale formations has on the atmosphere over a 20-year period.*

Methane gas, the major component of natural gas, has been promoted by some entities as a greener energy alternative than the use of coal because it burns cleaner. Results of this recent Cornell study, however, indicate that the methane emissions that result from the natural gas industry may result in a greater greenhouse gas footprint than other forms of energy extraction. This is partially due to the fact that methane is a very potent greenhouse gas.

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