"New Yorkers shouldn't become unwilling data points in a mass health experiment, " says Sandra Steingraber, the ecologist-biologist author of Raising Elijah and Living Downstream. "I want to be able to tell the 3,300 people diagnosed with cancer today, and the 3,300 people diagnosed tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, that we're not sending toxic chemicals that interfere with hormonal and cellular functioning into the water aquifers."
Last weekend on my radio program, "Connect the Dots," I interviewed Steingraber, a cancer survivor herself, whose in-depth study of the dense and interlocking frontiers of science, health, environment, and public policy, has led her to champion caution prior to incurring mass health risks.
With recent evidence that fracking chemicals can migrate far from a frack site, should people have to play "believe it or not" with the safety pronouncements made by gas industry P.R. and advertising campaigns? As a scientist, Steingraber argues that instead we need scientific studies. Calling herself scientifically conservative, she suggests that elected officials and regulators shelve fracking until independent scientists have taken the time to gather the data, and analyze the health and environmental impacts. But the economic imperative of gas companies is not to wait, but to exert pressure upon politicians.
Steingraber points out that data about impacts can be gathered in the neighboring frack boom state of Pennsylvania. But she argues that the benefit of the doubt should rest with public safety not with gas companies. Because if New York were to proceed with fracking, but without studies, it would be the first time that sizable urban populations will have been placed at risk for exposure to fracking chemicals. Studies show these chemicals can migrate over distances in water, while ozone causing air pollution travels even farther.
The recent recipient of the prestigious Heinz Award, Steingraber, instead of using the $100,000 award monies for her own research, recently announced that she will donate the gift to the organizations working to protect New York's water. Calling fracking the "civil rights issue of our time," Steingraber likens the grass roots organizations to the abolitionist movement, which sought to retool the U.S. economy, and end our dependence on slaves. Ending the enslavement on fossil fuels is a shift Steingraber views as both possible and essential.
Yet as the December 12th deadline rapidly approaches for the public comments on Governor Cuomo-sponsored approvals to frack New York, there are seven things New Yorkers need to know and three things they need to do to preserve their water supply, air quality, and health.
What New Yorkers need to know:
1. The temporary moratorium on fracking may end as soon as public comments are digested, and Governor Cuomo approves the new state-wide fracking guidelines. (Public comment closes December 12th. To comment go here.)
2. No federal regulations assure clean and safe drinking water during or after fracking since this recent new form of drilling was exempted prophylactically by Dick Cheney. See my Huffington blog here.
3. No environmental research demonstrates that, given the state's unique geology, flood zones, seismic activity risks, and the aging of the water reservoir infrastructures, that the New York City water supply can be made safe from fracking chemicals.
4. Although fracking uses hazardous industrial carcinogens, Cuomo's 15,000-page environmental guidelines (called the SGEIS) contain neither current nor future plans to assess fracking's attendant health risk, impacts, or costs. For more on SGEIS, go here.
5. A group of 250 physicians urged the governor to conduct studies, saying it would cost billions of dollars to remediate urban water supplies. Learn more here.
6. There is clear scientific evidence that fracking would appreciably worsen the ozone levels and air quality of New York City, Steingraber told me in this eSIO interview.
7. Gas and oil companies exert a disproportionate influence on politicians through lobbying and campaign donations, according to a recent article in the New York Times.
As this list shows, given all of the consequences, known and unknown, fracking New York is not to be undertaken lightly, solely based on industry assurances, especially given the multitude of documented problems in Pennsylvania and elsewhere. (For more on the PA frack boom aftermaths, listen here.) Unless elected officials and regulators drill a bit deeper into the real risks and costs, they are not doing their job of serving the public. Fortunately, efforts to remind them of that responsibility (even in the face of industry pressure) can succeed as demonstrated by recent activist efforts to stall the tar sands and the fracking of the Delaware River.
So here are the three things, people can do:
1. All Americans can call President Obama and ask him to ban fracking in the Delaware River and support bringing fracking under regular EPA standards, rather than exempting this new process.
2. New Yorkers can attend public meetings scheduled by the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) this week in New York City and upstate:
11/29 Sullivan County Community College, Seelig Theatre, 112 College Road, Loch Sheldrake
11/30 Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street, New York, NY
3. Public comment on the DEC guidelines remains open until December 12th and can be made herehere.
"There's so much we don't know about what happens under ground, so let's not open Pandora's Box," Steingrabber urges.
You can learn more about Sandra Steingraber and her books at her Website.
For health and environmental radio programs, blogs, and actions, please sign up at Health Journalist and you can follow me on Twitter @AlisonRoseLevy on Facebook, and here on HuffPost.
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/AlisonRoseLevy
Is it even realistic to think that any of us wouldn't want this to be the answer to all of our economic and unemployment crisis?
When there is even a doubt that something like destroying the water of millions of citizens in this country I would like to think that the people calling the shots would be so very cautious. This shale isn't going anywhere. We can put men on the moon yet in a country with a "can do" reputation they have not figuered out a safer way of extracting the gas? It's true, it isn't being done right here in PA and the proof is right here. People are suffering. Children are very sick. And pets and livestock are dying. When there is even a doubt of such irreversible contamination and destruction of the most important natural resources such as WATER there shouldn't be a doubt in their minds to stop, look and listen to what the people who are experiencing this assault on their lives have to say.
Thank you Alison for not giving up.
rooftop solar, offshore wind, efficiency, underwater turbines and waste bio char bio fuels can supply all the fuels and energy we need. forever, 24/7, carbon, land, and water negative, safe and clean. solar cheaper than nukes, wind and waste bio char cheaper than everything buy geothermal.
Comparing fossil fuel usage to slavery is the sort of nonsense that marginalizes your views. Fossil fuels freed mankind from slavery.
Drilling is not a civil rights issue - it's a mineral rights issue. Appropriating the mineral rights of landowners is unlawful acquisition someone else's property. America has a strong and lengthy history of protecting the mineral rights of individual landowners - good luck overturning that.
As the economies of pro-fracking states boom you'll find greater and greater pressure on states like NY that hold out. The scientific evidence, the legal precedent, and the collective opinion of the public are all on the side of fracking and domestic drilling. The fracking of New York state will not be prevented. It will, at most, be delayed, while the Utica shale is drilled out in West Virginia and Ohio instead.
But eventually, reason will prevail. People will see that pro-fracking states have cancer rates that are no higher (and, in most cases, significantly lower) then their paranoid neighbors, with stronger economies and better public resources to boot. "Fracking causes cancer" will come to be seen in the same light as "vaccines cause autism" - a silly idea foisted by fear mongers in defiance of science. (In fact, it's telling that the anti-fracker RFK Jr. was a prominent anti-vaccinator as well).
"In 2009, data from the registry showed that six counties in the western Dallas-Fort Worth area had the highest incidence of invasive breast cancer in the state. These counties are Tarrant (which includes the city of Fort Worth), Denton, Wise, Parker, Hood, and Johnson. These 6 counties cover about 5,000 square miles and have a combined population of nearly 3 million people. "
http://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/resources/publications/AAG/dcpc.htm
Why do they need exemptions from the clean air and water acts if it's safe?
Compared to the rest of Texas, the cancer rates in Ft. Worth are slightly higher. Compared to the rest of the country ... lower.
You can actually see this from the link you sent, where Texas is one the "white" states.
But keeping forward your nonesense, especially when your own links contradict yourself. It's nice to see the fractivisits so quickly expose their lack of knowledge.
http://www.dentonrc.com/sharedcontent/dws/drc/localnews/stories/DRC_Breast_Cancer_0831.11947df68.html
The rate in the 6 counties went from 58.7 to 60.7.
The national rate ... 127!!!! Over twice as large!!!
Although going from 58.7 to 60 is nothing to celebrate, having a cancer rate less than half the national average is.
If fracking is so dangerous, why is the cancer rate in the Ft. Worth area less then half the national average? Sounds like that part of the country should be emulated.
But hey, don't let the actual numbers dissuade you. That's too much work, to look at numbers and perform division and all that...
The economies of pro-fracking states may be booming for the companies that come in and do it but they will not be booming for long. These companies will be leaving a minute after they have finished their fracking and any benefits to the local economies will leave with them. How would you like to be owning a piece of property in an area where fracking is done? Think its value will go up or go down after the frackers leave? See how that helps your economy.
The cancer rates in the Ft. Worth may be lower than the national average now but it will take decades for the cancer effects of fracking to show up in the statistics.
Who said that drilling is a civil rights issue? Not in NY State my friend. It is an environmental issue and a political issue and it will be settled politically. If enough people in NY State are informed about the negative realities of fracking it would be political suicide for the politicians to support it. Already, there are many politicians who are opposed to it here.
I suggest you view the movie "Gasland" as I am sure that it will smarten you up about what fracking brings to the communities it gets into. It's available on video at Netflix and sometimes is broadcast on TV as well.
I think the whole idea that you watch movies for educational purposes is a good sign of your level of intelligence and education.
I suggest you read the MIT Energy Initiative report that endorsed fracking for natural gas.
Upper left hand corner here.
http://web.mit.edu/mitei/research/studies/index.shtml
Although, since you love movies so much, I doubt you have the patience to read it all the way through.
All truth does not reside in the EPA or it's claim that there is no scientific evidence that fracking has ever caused any impact to groundwater anywhere. Check out the movie (on DVD) "Gasland" and you will see the reality of the effect of fracking on groundwater. It has one interesting scene at the house of a farmer in a fracking area where a match put to a running water faucet ignites a large flame, big enough to singe the people near it. This is caused by the gas that is now coming up with the groundwater. This is caused by the fracking and it begs the lie of the EPA that fracking has never caused any impact to groundwater anywhere. You can see it for yourself if you are open minded to take a look.
And this energy unfortunately comes from gas, and so fracking has to be done. It's what people are addicted to and there are ever more companies willing to provide the junkies with the poison.
I guess its about time Americans take a dump in their own backyard after decades of throwing their sh_t in other countries and in other American states.
I live in Broome County, NY, in the Susquehanna River Basin. There are about 200,000 people living in Broome County. Many of them depend on unfiltered private or municipal water wells; others (e.g. city of Binghamton) get their water from the Susquehanna River. The Susquehanna River Basin supplies millions of people with water. American Rivers has named the Susquehanna the most endangered river in the nation because of fracking.
I hope that when your readers contact Pres. Obama and their other national and local representatives, they will tell them that everyone deserves safe drinking water and that high-volume hydrofracking should be banned nationwide unless/until independent (i.e. non-gas-industry) scientific studies show that it is safe.