Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings

COMPENDIUM OF SCIENTIFIC, MEDICAL, AND MEDIA FINDINGS DEMONSTRATING RISKS AND HARMS OF FRACKING (UNCONVENTIONAL GAS AND OIL EXTRACTION) Fourth Edition November 17, 2016 ©2013 Julie Dermansky Foreword to the Fourth Edition The Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (the Compendium) is a fully referenced compilation of the evidence outlining the risks and harms of fracking. Bringing together findings from the scientific and medical literature, government and industry reports, and journalistic investigation, it is a public, open-access document that is housed on the websites of Concerned Health Professionals of New York (www.concernedhealthny.org) and Physicians for Social Responsibility (www.psr.org). The release of the first edition of the Compendium by Concerned Health Professionals of New York in July 2014 coincided with a meteoric rise in the publication of new scientific studies about the risks and impacts of fracking. Hence, a second edition was released five months later, in December 2014. This updated version included dozens of new studies that further explicated the recurrent problems, data gaps, and ongoing uncertainties that natural gas and oil extraction via hydraulic fracturing brings with it. Almost concurrently, on December 17, 2014, the New York State Department of Health (NYS DOH) released its own long-awaited review of the health impacts of fracking. This 186-page document served as the foundation for a statewide ban on high-volume hydraulic fracturing (HVHF), announced by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on the same day. The conclusions of the NYS DOH public health review largely aligned with our own. In the words of New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker, “[I]t is clear from the existing literature and experience that HVHF activity has resulted in environmental impacts that are potentially adverse to public health. Until the science provides sufficient information to determine the level of risk to public health from HVHF and whether the risks can be adequately managed, HVHF should not proceed in New York State.” (See footnote 402.) Released in October 2015, the third edition of the Compendium was compiled as a joint effort with Physicians for Social Responsibility and included more than 100 new peer-reviewed publications on the impacts of fracking. In addition, the third edition included the results of four multi-volume government reports on the impacts of fracking that had been issued in the United States: one from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that focuses on water; two from California that examine a wide array of impacts; and, from New York, the Department of Environmental Conservation’s Findings Statement that—together with the final environmental impact statement on fracking—implemented New York’s ban and incorporates the NYS DOH public health review into a larger analysis of the environmental and economic impacts of fracking. According to the Findings Statement, “Even with the implementation of an extensive suite of mitigation measures…the significant adverse public health and environmental impacts from allowing high-volume hydraulic fracturing to proceed under any scenario cannot be adequately avoided or minimized to the maximum extent practicable….” (See footnote 294.) Since its original release, the three earlier editions of the Compendium have been used and referenced all over the world. The Compendium has been twice translated into Spanish: independently in 2014 by a Madrid-based environmental coalition, followed by an official translation of the third edition, which was funded by the Heinrich Böll Foundation and launched at a press conference in Mexico City in May 2016. The Compendium has been used in the European Union, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and South America. 2 This fourth edition of the Compendium is being finalized as a landmark United Nations climate treaty, the Paris Agreement, goes into force. Recognizing climate change as a grave threat to public health and safety, the Paris Agreement establishes as a key goal the need to limit global temperature increases to less than 2o Celsius. As such, it articulates a new vision for energy by compelling nations to monitor their greenhouse gas emissions and set increasingly ambitious targets and timetables to reduce them. Under the treaty, concrete policy plans to achieve these objectives are left up to individual nation states. For its part, the United States, which ratified the Paris Agreement on September 3, 2016, has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 26- 28 percent by 2025, as compared to 2005 levels. Research published last September shows that our nation is on track to miss this target, in large part because of increasing emissions of methane, which is a powerful heat-trapping gas.1, 2 As documented in a new federal inventory of greenhouse gases, methane leaks from U.S. oil and gas operations are higher than previously estimated, as are total U.S. methane emissions, which increased by more than 30 percent between 2002 and 2014.3 Indeed, as revealed by both satellite and ground observations, our nation’s methane emissions are responsible for 30-60 percent of the recent upsurge in global atmospheric methane concentrations. (See footnotes 608, 609). Most of this excess methane, as is revealed by a study published in September 2016 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, represents fugitive emissions from U.S. oil and gas operations.4, 5, 6 These and other emerging data, described further in the pages that follow, indicate that fracking, an enabler of these trends, is incompatible with climate stability and the goal of rapid decarbonization that it requires. This new iteration of the Compendium arrives on the heels of another major event that has put methane in the spotlight: the Aliso Canyon gas storage blowout in California. A key component of fracked gas infrastructure, Aliso Canyon is a 3,600-acre underground natural gas storage facility located within a mile of the affluent community of Porter Ranch, which sprang up after the gas storage field opened in 1972. The Aliso Canyon blowout that began on October 23, 2015 resulted in an uncontrolled leak that lasted for four months, released 100,000 tons of methane 1 Greenblatt, J. R. & Wei, M. (2016). Assessment of the climate commitments and additional mitigation policies of the United States. Nature Climate Change. doi: 10.1038/nclimate3125 2 Mooney, C. (2016, September 26). The U.S. is on course to miss its emissions goals, and one reason is methane. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/2016/09/26/the-u-s-is-on-course-to-miss-its-emissions-goals-and-one-reason-is- methane/?utm_term=.4296c92ce0fa 3 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2016, April 15). Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2014. EPA 430-R-16-002. Retrieved from https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/Downloads/ghgemissions/US- GHG-Inventory-2016-Main-Text.pdf 4 Rice, A., L., Butenhoff, C. L., Teama, D. G., Röger, F. H., Khalil, M., A., & Rasmussen, R. A. (2016). Atmospheric methane isotopic record favors fossil sources flat in 1980s and 1990s with recent increase. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(39). doi:10.1073/pnas.1522923113 5 Harvey, C. (2016, September 13). Scientists may have solved a key mystery about the world’s methane emissions. The Washington Post. Retrieved from https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy- environment/wp/2016/09/13/the-answer-to-the-global-methane-mystery-fossil-fuels-a-study- finds/?postshare=9211473782277274&tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.c51388f0c97d 6 von Kaenel, C. (2016, September 13). Debate rises over real source of higher methane emissions. Scientific American. Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debate-rises-over-real-source-of-higher- methane-emissions/ 3 and became the largest ever natural gas leak in U.S. history.7 The leak—so massive that its methane plume was visible from space by circling NASA satellites—prompted the evacuation and relocation of 8,300 households at a cost of $500 million. At this writing—a full year after the accident began—Aliso Canyon is still closed as its 114 wells are tested for integrity. Twenty-six wells have, so far, passed the required tests; the majority of wells are considered problematic and have been isolated.8 In October 2016, a federal task force issued a report containing 44 recommendations intended to prevent another Aliso Canyon-style disaster. Chief among them is a phase-out of “single point of failure” designs.9 Even as we compiled entries for this fourth edition, the authors of the Compendium continued to see evidence of, and appreciate, how young our knowledge base still is. As is revealed in the study citation database maintained by PSE Healthy Energy, more than 80 percent of all of the peer-reviewed literature that is relevant to assessing the environmental, socioeconomic, and public health impacts of shale and tight gas development has been published since January 2013. Indeed, nearly one-quarter of the now more than 900 available studies were published in the first nine months of 2016 alone.10 The vast majority of the literature reveals both potential and actual problems. Specifically, as demonstrated by PSE’s statistical analysis of the body of scientific literature available from 2009-2015—which, at the date of publication included 685 peer- reviewed papers—69 percent of original research studies on water quality found potential for, or actual evidence of, water contamination; 87 percent of original research studies on air quality found elevated air pollutant emissions; and 84 percent of original research studies on human health risks found signs of harm or indication of potential harm.11 As a response to this proliferating evidence of the risks and harms of fracking—augmented by increasing concern about the many uncertainties remaining—various countries, states, and municipalities have instituted bans and moratoria, with many prohibitions announced in 2015 and 2016 (although some local bans were subsequently rescinded by state or national governments).

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