Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction) Fifth Edition March 2018
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Compendium of Scientific, Medical, and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction) Fifth Edition March 2018 Fracking industry site near Greers Ferry Lake in Quitman, Arkansas in the Fayetteville Shale region. ©2014 Julie Dermansky 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. 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 four 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 in Mexico City in May 2016. The Compendium has been used in the European Union, South Africa, the United Kingdom, Australia, Mexico, and Argentina. About Concerned Health Professionals of New York Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY) is an initiative by health professionals, scientists, and medical organizations for raising science-based concerns about the impacts of fracking on public health and safety. CHPNY provides educational resources and works to ensure that careful consideration of science and health impacts are at the forefront of the fracking debate. About Physicians for Social Responsibility Working for more than 50 years to create a healthy, just, and peaceful world for both present and future generations, Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) uses medical and public health expertise to educate and advocate on urgent issues that threaten human health and survival, with the goals of reversing the trajectory towards climate change, protecting the public and the environment from toxic chemicals, and addressing the health consequences of fossil fuels. PSR was founded by physicians concerned about nuclear weapons, and the abolition of nuclear weapons remains central to its mission. 2 Contents About Concerned Health Professionals of New York .................................................................... 2 About Physicians for Social Responsibility .................................................................................... 2 About this Report ............................................................................................................................ 4 Foreword to the Fifth Edition ......................................................................................................... 7 The Compendium in Historical Context ..................................................................................... 7 Expanding Knowledge Base ....................................................................................................... 9 Timeline of Bans and Moratoria ............................................................................................... 10 Introduction to Fracking ............................................................................................................... 14 Emerging Trends ........................................................................................................................... 17 Compilation of Studies & Findings .............................................................................................. 31 Air pollution .............................................................................................................................. 31 Water contamination ................................................................................................................. 48 Inherent engineering problems that worsen with time .............................................................. 87 Radioactive releases .................................................................................................................. 93 Occupational health and safety hazards .................................................................................... 99 Public health effects, measured directly ................................................................................. 114 Noise pollution, light pollution, and stress ............................................................................. 126 Earthquakes and seismic activity ............................................................................................ 131 Abandoned and active oil and natural gas wells as pathways for gas and fluid migration .... 151 Flood risks ............................................................................................................................... 160 Threats to agriculture and soil quality .................................................................................... 163 Threats to the climate system .................................................................................................. 171 Threats from fracking infrastructure ....................................................................................... 193 Sand mining and processing ............................................................................................... 194 Wastewater treatment facilities ........................................................................................... 198 Pipelines and compressor stations ...................................................................................... 198 Gas storage: The Aliso Canyon leak ................................................................................... 211 Liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities ................................................................................ 220 Inaccurate jobs claims, increased crime rates, threats to property values and mortgages, and local government burden ........................................................................................................ 223 Inflated estimates of oil and gas reserves and profitability .................................................... 241 Disclosure of serious risks to investors ................................................................................... 248 Medical and scientific calls for more study, reviews confirming evidence for harm, and calls for increased transparency and science-based policy ............................................................. 251 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................. 266 3 About this Report The Compendium is organized to be accessible to public officials, researchers, journalists, and the public at large. The reader who wants to delve deeper can consult the reviews, studies, and articles referenced herein. In addition, the Compendium is complemented by a fully searchable, near-exhaustive citation database of peer-reviewed journal articles pertaining to shale gas and oil extraction, the Repository for Oil and Gas Energy Research, that was developed by PSE Healthy Energy and which is housed on its website (https://www.psehealthyenergy.org/our-work/shale- gas-research-library/). For this fifth edition of the Compendium, as before, we collected and compiled findings from three sources: articles from peer-reviewed medical or scientific journals; investigative reports by journalists; and reports from, or commissioned by, government agencies. Peer-reviewed articles were identified through databases such as PubMed and Web of Science, and from within the PSE Healthy Energy database. We included review articles when such reviews revealed new understanding of the evidence. Our entries briefly describe studies that document harm, or risk of harm, associated with fracking and summarize the principal findings. Entries do not include detailed results or a critique of the strengths and weaknesses of each study. Because much of medicine’s early understanding of new diseases and previously unsuspected epidemiological correlations comes through assessment of case reports, we have included published case reports and anecdotal reports when they are data-based and verifiable. The studies and investigations referenced in the dated entries catalogued in Compilation of Studies & Findings are current through December 2017. The footnoted citations here in the front matter represent studies and articles that are not referenced in the Compendium itself or which appeared as we go to press in March 2018. Within the compiled entries, we have also provided references to articles appearing in the popular press, when available, that describe the findings of the corresponding peer-reviewed study. For this purpose, we sought out articles in the popular literature that expertly and plainly reported on studies that were highly technical, especially if those articles included comments by principal investigators on the significance of their findings. In such cases, footnotes for the peer- reviewed study and the matching popular article appear together in one entry. We hope these tandem references will make the findings more accessible to lay readers. Acronyms are spelled out the first time they appear in each section. News articles appearing as individual entries signify investigative reports by journalists conducting original research. While advocacy organizations have compiled many useful reports on the impacts of fracking,