Talking Points: Hydro-Fracking Issues
- Methane gas escapes during drilling and creates planet warming and climate change.
- Air pollution impacts
- Exposure to toxic chemicals
- Blowouts due to gas explosion
- Waste water toxic chemical disposal
- Large volume of water use in water-deficient regions
- Fracking-induced earthquakes
- Health-threatening air pollution due to heavy truck traffic and fugitive emissions from gas wells and compressor stations
- Explosion hazards due to methane contamination of water supplies
- The long- and short-term health effects of drilling wells close to homes and schools
- Devaluation of residential properties
- Long periods of high noise levels
- Loss of green space
- Severe road damage
- Clear-cutting of trees for well pads (a typical multi-well pad occupies four to five acres or more)
Erosion
- Habitat fragmentation (basically this is when a habitat is divided into isolated patches of landscape that has harmful effects on biodiversity – it is like putting in a new wall in the road blocking your from traveling any further – this can happen to animals when fracking divides what was once a contiguous habitat into smaller areas which can have detrimental effects on species that occupied the larger habitat)
- Illegal dumping of toxic waste (there is currently no viable plan for disposing of the contaminated cuttings and wastewater generated by the shale gas extraction process)
- The possibility of pipeline and gas well explosions and fires
- Damage to vegetation near gas wells, pipelines, and compressor stations
- Gas well flaring and its attendant air pollution
- The introduction of invasive species
- Damage to farmland
- Disruption of wildlife
- Pipeline leaks
- Chemical spills
- The inability of emergency response vehicles to quickly navigate through heavy drilling-related truck traffic on damaged roads
- The need for hiring many additional emergency personnel and the source of funding for those personnel
- Reserves may only last another 15-20 years, far fewer than the overstated natural gas industry projections.
- Health Impact is not good. In 2013 McKinsey found elevated risk of birth defects in populations residing within a ten-mile radius of wells.
- In 2011 a team led by Theo Colburn of the Endocrine Disruptor Exchange found that 25% of chemicals known to be used in fracking fluids are implicated in cancer, 37% in endocrine system disruption, and 75% could affect the skin, eyes and respiratory system.
