Lost in the debate about hydraulic fracturing is the possibility that some byproducts might cause problems worse than partisan gas.
With leases to more than 2,623 acres of land up for sale in the Wayne National Forest and Cunningham Energy proposing leasing opportunities to area landowners over the weekend, the purity of Athens’ water supply could be at risk.
Cunningham, as well as other oil and gas companies in Appalachia, is eyeing leases in Southeastern Ohio with the intent to utilize hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract natural gas thousands of feet below the surface.
The mining style is the only of its kind not regulated by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The section of the legislation is commonly referred to as the “Halliburton Loophole.”
There are about 944 products used during hydraulic fracture mining. Of those, more than 600 chemicals have potential health effects; 75 percent of which affect the skin, eyes, sensory organs and the liver, 50 percent of which affect the nervous system and 25 percent of which are known carcinogens, according to a public health study conducted by Dr. Theo Colborn of The Endocrine Disruption Exchange.
In terms of drinking water in Athens, 95 percent comes from the aquifer directly below the parcels of land for lease in the Wayne National Forest.
Despite efforts from city and Ohio University officials to publicly oppose ‘fracking’ due to the potential health risks, Heather Cantino, board chair of the Buckeye Forest Council, said the efforts might be futile.
“The chemicals injected into the ground and water are highly toxic,” Cantino said. “Unfortunately, the bulk of the studies done are conducted by company-funded groups.”
Next to workers on the drilling on site, property owners would be the most susceptible to possible health risks that could result from immediate exposure to the chemicals, Cantino added.
Symptoms of immediate exposure to some of the chemicals, according to Colborn’s study, include skin and eye irritation, coughing, asthma, flu-like symptoms and headaches.
“None of the chemicals would normally be ingested,” Colborn said. “Immediate eye (exposure and) nasal … inhalation could lead to rapid absorption and direct exposure to vital organs.”
Because of the proximity of parcels of land up for lease to Wayne and Athens’ aquifer, disposal of the chemicals used while fracking is another point of interest.
Any given fracturing well uses two to 10 million gallons of water, 50 percent of which would in theory continuously cycle back into the wells, becoming increasingly more contaminated, Cantino said. That contaminated water could enter Athens’ main water source.
Normally overshadowed by land and water contamination concerns, air pollution caused by chemicals escaping during drilling and equipment exhaust can also carry significant health effects.
The combination of chemicals such as benzene, a known carcinogen, and nitrogen molecules in the air creates ground-level ozone, or smog. Combined with diesel exhaust from the machinery, that smog leaves a haze in areas around the drilling site and can spread up to 200 miles from the site, Colborn said.
According to the American Lung Association, the ground-level ozone chemical make-up is linked to bladder, breast and lung cancer.
“Many people don’t realize how the environmental effects directly affect each of us,” Cantino said.
kg287609@ohiou.edu
