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Jacki Schilke
This cow on Jacki Schilke's ranch in northeast North Dakota lost most of its tail, one of many ailments that afflicted her cattle after hydrofracturing, or fracking, began in the nearby Bakken Shale.
In the midst of the domestic energy boom, livestock on farms near oil- and gas-drilling operations nationwide have been quietly falling sick and dying. While scientists have yet to isolate cause and effect, many suspect chemicals used in drilling and hydrofracking (or “fracking”) operations are poisoning animals through the air, water or soil.
Earlier this year, Michelle Bamberger, an Ithaca, N.Y., veterinarian, and Robert Oswald, a professor of molecular medicine at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine, published the first and only peer-reviewed report to suggest a link between fracking and illness in food animals.
The authors compiled 24 case studies of farmers in six shale-gas states whose livestock experienced neurological, reproductive and acute gastrointestinal problems after being exposed — either accidentally or incidentally — to fracking chemicals in the water or air. The article, published in “New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health,” describes how scores of animals died over the course of several years. Fracking industry proponents challenged the study, since the authors neither identified the farmers nor ran controlled experiments to determine how specific fracking compounds might affect livestock.
The death toll is insignificant when measured against the nation’s livestock population (some 97 million beef cattle go to market each year), but environmental advocates believe these animals constitute an early warning.
Exposed livestock “are making their way into the food system, and it’s very worrisome to us,” Bamberger said. “They live in areas that have tested positive for air, water and soil contamination. Some of these chemicals could appear in milk and meat products made from these animals.”
In Louisiana, 17 cows died after an hour’s exposure to spilled fracking fluid, which is injected miles underground to crack open and release pockets of natural gas. The most likely cause of death: respiratory failure.
In New Mexico, hair testing of sick cattle that grazed near well pads found petroleum residues in 54 of 56 animals.
In northern central Pennsylvania, 140 cattle were exposed to fracking wastewater when an impoundment was breached. Approximately 70 cows died, and the remainder produced only 11 calves, of which three survived.
In western Pennsylvania, an overflowing wastewater pit sent fracking chemicals into a pond and a pasture where pregnant cows grazed: Half their calves were born dead. Dairy operators in shale-gas areas of Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Texas have also reported the death of goats exposed to fracking chemicals.
Drilling and fracking a single well requires up to 7 million gallons of water, plus an additional 400,000 gallons of additives, including lubricants, biocides, scale- and rust-inhibitors, solvents, foaming and defoaming agents, emulsifiers and de-emulsifiers, stabilizers and breakers. At almost every stage of developing and operating an oil or gas well, chemicals and compounds can be introduced into the environment.
Cows lose weight, die
After drilling began just over the property line of Jacki Schilke’s ranch in the northwestern corner of North Dakota in 2009, in the heart of the state’s booming Bakken Shale, cattle began limping, with swollen legs and infections. Cows quit producing milk for their calves, they lost from 60 to 80 pounds in a week and their tails mysteriously dropped off. Eventually, five animals died, according to Schilke.
Ambient air testing by a certified environmental consultant detected elevated levels of benzene, methane, chloroform, butane, propane, toluene and xylene -- and well testing revealed high levels of sulfates, chromium, chloride and strontium. Schilke says she moved her herd upwind and upstream from the nearest drill pad.
Although her steers currently look healthy, she said, “I won’t sell them because I don’t know if they’re OK.”
Nor does anyone else. Energy companies are exempt from key provisions of environmental laws, which makes it difficult for scientists and citizens to learn precisely what is in drilling and fracking fluids or airborne emissions. And without information on the interactions between these chemicals and pre-existing environmental chemicals, veterinarians can’t hope to pinpoint an animal’s cause of death.
The risks to food safety may be even more difficult to parse, since different plants and animals take up different chemicals through different pathways.
“There are a variety of organic compounds, metals and radioactive material (released in the fracking process) that are of human health concern when livestock meat or milk is ingested,” said Motoko Mukai, a veterinary toxicologist at Cornell’s College of Veterinary Medicine. These “compounds accumulate in the fat and are excreted into milk. Some compounds are persistent and do not get metabolized easily.”
Jacki Schilke
An oil-drilling rig is visible from Jacki Schilke's ranch in North Dakota.
Veterinarians don’t know how long chemicals may remain in animals, farmers aren’t required to prove their livestock are free of contamination before middlemen purchase them and the Food Safety Inspection Service of the U.S. Department of Agriculture isn’t looking for these compounds in carcasses at slaughterhouses.
Documenting the scope of the problem is difficult: Scientists lack funding to study the matter, and rural vets remain silent for fear of retaliation. Farmers who receive royalty checks from energy companies are reluctant to complain, and those who have settled with gas companies following a spill or other accident are forbidden to disclose information to investigators. Some food producers would rather not know what’s going on, say ranchers and veterinarians.
“It takes a long time to build up a herd’s reputation,” said rancher Dennis Bauste of Trenton Lake, N.D. “I’m gonna sell my calves and I don’t want them to be labeled as tainted. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to test for. Until there’s a big wipeout, a major problem, we’re not gonna hear much about this.”
Fracking proponents criticize Bamberger and Oswald’s paper as a political, not a scientific, document. “They used anonymous sources, so no one can verify what they said,” said Steve Everley, of the industry lobby group Energy In Depth. The authors didn’t provide a scientific assessment of impacts -- testing what specific chemicals might do to cows that ingest them, for example -- so treating their findings as scientific, he continues, “is laughable at best, and dangerous for public debate at worst.” Bamberger and Oswald acknowledge this lack of scientific assessment and blame it on the dearth of funding for fracking research and on the industry’s use of nondisclosure agreements.
The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, the main lobbying group for ranchers, takes no position on fracking, but some ranchers are beginning to speak out. “These are industry-supporting conservatives, not radicals,” said Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the environmental group, Natural Resources Defense Council. “They are the experts in their animals’ health, and they are very concerned.”
Last March, Christopher Portier, director of the National Center for Environmental Health at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called for studies of oil and gas production’s impact on food plants and animals. None is currently planned by the federal government.
As local food booms, consumers wary
But consumers intensely interested in where and how their food is grown aren’t waiting for hard data to tell them their meat or milk is safe. For them, the perception of pollution is just as bad as the real thing.
“My beef sells itself. My farm is pristine. But a restaurant doesn’t want to visit and see a drill pad on the horizon,” said Ken Jaffe, who raises grass-fed cattle in upstate New York.
Only recently has the local foods movement, in regions across the country, reached a critical mass. But the movement’s lofty ideals could turn out to be, in shale gas areas, a double-edged sword.
Should the moratorium on hydrofracking in New York State be lifted, the 16,200-member Park Slope Food Co-op, in Brooklyn, will no longer buy food from farms anywhere near drilling operations -- a $4 million loss for upstate producers. The livelihood of organic goat farmer Steven Cleghorn, who’s surrounded by active wells in Pennsylvania, is already in jeopardy.
“People at the farmers market are starting to ask exactly where this food comes from,” he said.
This report was produced by the Food & Environment Reporting Network, an independent investigative journalism non-profit focusing on food, agriculture, and environmental health. A longer version of this story appears on TheNation.com.
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What The Frack (WTF). Biodiesel from algae needs to be ramped up now, so we don't tip the balance that is already tipping over. Reverse climate change, not in my lifetime. Mitigation & adaptation is the only alternative left...harvest algae from the sea. The Saudi's are already looking into this option, because they know and believe in the peak oil theory. Want to get out of war in the middle east? Figure out how to harvest algae efficiently, and we can all stop worrying. However, there is this thing called the oil lobby. WTFFFFrack!...
Typical. Whenever it comes down to profits, companies always wait until significant damage is done before they will even consider taking any action. Even then, they will have to be forced by some government oversight, and everyone will start crying about regulation hurting capitalism or the economy...
The oil companies complain because this study does not have enough data, but at the same time they will not give out the list of chemicals that are pumped into these wells. It is only through spills that people are able to find out what some of the goop is. This is going to become a bigger and bigger headache for the oil companies. They would best give researchers the list of chemicals they use and have tests done and do their own tests. It is inconceivable that some sector of the economy can quietly get away without have a thorough environmental checkup. When they get socked for a suit like the cigarette companies, they will think it would have been wise to do the right thing. If they don't want to regulate themselves and be more open, then the government has to step in and reign in this circus. Also, what part of their bodies are the farmers and ranchers waiting to fall off, before they asking if this stuff is harming them and their families.
Who remembers radon (gas)?
It occurs widely in shale. Why wouldn't fracking, which is designed to release natural gas, also release radon? Once released from shale, isn't it bound to migrate to the surface in larger concentrations than in natural (un-fracked) shale formations?
This is just one possibility that could occur because of our essential ignorance about the unknown consequences of this new technology. Clearly, there are many others.
We should continue with fracking. It is too valuable to ignore. But, we should go slowly enough and constrain its use enough so that should unforeseen consequences occur, it will not be impossible to undo the damage.
I don't know Ian, moderation is not the nature of Greed and Waste. Are they trying to get us energy sources or are they trying to kill us and our animals?
If I'm dead it's not that valuable to me.
After watching Gasland, I knew these things would come to light. I'm only hoping we can stop the pillaging of our water sources and earth before all the worlds water supply becomes tainted and we all start growing some extra parts. Mother nature can reset herself, the price will be all living animals and people.
Soulless heartless destroyers of Man. They need to be shackled and place in gallows.
Time for Pitchforks and Torches to flush out these criminals, and that includes the politicians that legalize their actions. It appears the only way things are going to change is through violence against the perpetrators.
Too many timid citizens with their heads in the ostrich hole that ignore the mounting signs of demise for Man in the near future as a species not riddled with carcinogens, no clean water, soil nor air for the masses left.
Think this sounds too radical? Pay attention before it is beyond too late to do something. That is now.
Beyond Sad...
notsojingo,
Unless you walk everywhere barefoot, hand-woven natural fibers, and power your computer with a series potatoes, nails and bare wires; you are also part of the problem. Virtually all modern plastics and rubbers rely on petroleum and natural gas for resins and elastomers. The very electricity powering your computer stands a better than 70% chance of be created from coal, oil or gas. And without coal, oil and gas, the entire country would grind to a halt.
So before getting out the pitchfork, strip form the waist down, bend over while looking in a mirror, and imagine the rows of uniformly spaced holes. That will be the least of your share of retribution. When all are guilty, as we Americans are, then the cry for blood is useless.
Hello Bill!
Thanks for the primer. Just woke up and had no idea that I was alive and had contributed to the designs and practices into which all of us of the construct are guilty of. Or that plastics and resins and polymers come from mostly petroleum sources and derivatives. And that there have been alternatives kept from being used that could have prevented us from being in this Catch-22 situation you so aptly describe. And ignore. Do you agree that we very well could have a much more ecofriendly manner in which we reached these lofty heights which now dizzy us? That responsibility starts at the top? I have used this computer for nearly 10 years now. I have learned a @!$%#load about how those that like to obfuscte and distract from the fact that 'great success' is more costly than responsible and long term considerations. If you care to check, my specs are available for you to examine regarding my many responsibilities taken which do reduce my impact, as well as that I am a Conservationalist and have a great res[ect for Mother Earth.
You do sound well practiced at those mirror moves though! I am happy you are not too proud to share. Almost had a visual of you figuring out how to put that into words, though...not.
I have a much higher impact than that of a Bengladeshi Walmart Sweatshop Employee burned alive because so many Americans will not reduce, if not eliminate, their purchases of slave labor-like manufactured goods. And those in charge(those to whom which I threw out a version of a Nut Job POV for your pleasure) will not be dragged into the streets any time soon. If they could even be isolated as deeming these profit raising maneuvers to avoid manufacturing here in the US of such goods.
Sooooo, I will assume(dangerous, I know) that you also give a @!$%# and do your best not to just ignore facts, science and reason and leave your car running just to speed up the process while practicing your reflective moments. and admit my post was a rant.
Other than that, Have A Nice Day! And again, Thanks.
(-:
Do we have Dick Cheney to thank for this? "Energy companies are exempt from key provisions of environmental laws." Remember, he had SECRET talks on energy at the start of Bush, the son's, administration, which I thought was extremely suspect.
Why are they exempt? Lobbyists and friends in very high places I believe! It is a disgrace to our democracy!!!
This has as much to do with toxic waste sequestration as it does with extracting gas or oil. The larger problem is fracking itself damages the structure of the rock formation holding the gas. Allowing chemicals to access ground water. Once these things are done they can't be undone, and our future generations will pay the price.
and we thought we would let the chines pollute their country. humans will kill each other one way or another. and the disease and the environment will get the rest.
fracking is like the tobacco industry in the last century...smoking is harmless, there aren't any side effects, you can't prove anything, we have doctors and expert witnesses to testify that smoking is not harmful to your health. Unfortunately our politicians are on the take and many people will lose their lives or livelihood before changes are made.
In 2005, GOP fascist hero and American war criminal VP Cheney paid off the gas/ oil mobsters by ramming through the bill exempting fracking fluid from mandatory disclosure and not subject to EPA scrutiny. Dispicable, evil men leave death and misery in their wake.
Livestock getting sick, water that you can light on fire, earthquakes where they don't usually occur. There is nothing to see here, move along.
Laura Lean and Nolan Ryan Beef in Texas say they do not prohibit their suppliers from having cattle graze near oil and gas fields. Burgandy Beef says they only have one gas well on their ranch....tisk tisk tisk. There were other dead cows near Mineral Wells a couple of years ago after a rain storm flooded out a drill site....so sad.
Kim,
Have any of those wells be fracked? Ordinary producing oil and gas wells have very low and very local pollution dangers. Cattle and oil have coexisted in Texas with few problems since before the 1950's.
Fracking gives Texas another oil boom, but at huge water cost ...
Fracking has only come of late in Texas, Bill. It has only even boomed due to the latest technological advances, so I call you on that claim having much, if any, validity in respect to the recent and much more widespread use of this extraction method. Just keep ignoring the droughts there in TX. Or in most of the heaviest fracking areas. It's the only prudent thing to do! Especially because Texas is the model for clean fuel extraction and processing!!
Worst Drought in More Than a Century Strikes Texas Oil Boom ...
Oil in Shale Sets Off a Boom in Texas - NYTimes.com
Many Remain Fractured on Fracking, Even as Texas Passes …(Fox News)
I know, I know. I am the problem because I don't walk barefoot. I know.
Have A Nice Day! And Keep On Shilling!!
(-:
how does all the scum run this planet?
The 98% allow it, because to change the order around would require a revolution. The 2% control the money supply, etc., and police/ military take their orders from the empowered class.
Very true.
As others have pointed out to me, it is easier to watch the Earth die and stay silent...
once this fracking fluid is injected underground who can guarantee where it goes. once it's in, it's irreversible.
we will rue the day we allowed this practice.
And they won't even tell us what is in the fracking fluid. Trade secrete they say.
But wait a minute, wasn't North Dakota named as the "Best Run State" in the nation in another NBC news article. I think the journalists should compare notes, before writing their articles. But that's okay, the petrolium companies will pay millions in hush money just to get at the oil in the Bakken Shale.
That's a nice cocktail of deadly chemicals injected or spilled into the ground; where's the EPA when you need it? Probably in the back pockets of Chevron, Mobil, Exxon, Texaco, & BP. People need to rise up and bring pressure on the feds to deal with this situation, or we may all be poisoned some day soon.
Watch the documentary Gasland... Anyone who voted Bush-Cheney back in office in 2004 is guilty of poisoning these lands/ water supplies with fracking fluids. Drink up, conservatives.
Anyone want to join a new group, CAFE?-Citizens Against Fracking Everywhere?
This is terrible. People are mean to animals.
It is making me wonder as to how does this effect my tofu, and of course, me.
I hear that many environmentalists think wind and solar are best. And I think I agree.
One positive is that at least the oil executives didn't walk with all the money, our Congressmen got some of it.
"Energy companies are exempt from key provisions of environmental laws, which makes it difficult for scientists and citizens to learn precisely what is in drilling and fracking fluids or airborne emissions. And without information on the interactions between these chemicals and pre-existing environmental chemicals, veterinarians can’t hope to pinpoint an animal’s cause of death."
How in the world does this make sense??!!
The idea that these companies can go to any given area of the countryside and begin injecting "millions of gallons" of god-only-knows-what into the ground and not be required to fully disclose exactly what chemicals they're using is outrageous and absurd!!
Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald should be applauded for the work they did, not attacked!!
The "Fracking" industry is clearly killing livestock in a most obscene way, and this must be stopped before it begins killing us.
People wonder why some people are against fracking, here's your answer. People had said that this would happen and how it has.
I see insanity has gripped a number of you.The only thing I got from this article is 24 dead cows from a population of 24 million and the fact of "insufficient funding" for these two idiots to prove their point.They couldn't prove their point because no one in the right mind,even someone in a governmental agengy,where money flows freely,would approve a study on the death of 24 cows from a polulation of 24 million.That might get them fired,assuming they didn't belong to a public employees union.Much about nothing!It is always Mother Earth coming to get us.We,as a species,are not as powerful as we like to think we are.The problem is not pollution,it is our ability to think.There was a lot more pollution when drought animals ruled the roads and cities but we choose not to think about that.The temperature of the earth has risen and fallen many times over thousands of years.This is no different.Anarcticas' temperatures are actually dropping.The snowcap of North America and Europe has melted before,as soon as 7000 years ago,the end of the Little Ice Age.You "one world" brianiacs who like to preach this crap hoping in your lifetime,we will have a one world government and you will continue to sit on your ass and never have to work,are waisting your time.There is no long term proof that the world is doing anything that it hasn't done in the past and that,that proposition can be proven by imperical evidence,unlike your theories.Ninty nine percent(99%) of all species that have lived on earth, in the past, have become extinct.There is a good probability the same will happen to human in the future.I don't think we have to worry about the Oceans rising and the rivers bilging over their banks because the icecaps in the northern portion of earth show some melting.
I think this country's real enemy are the environmental groups that have taken control of our economy. In the 1970's after the oil embargo caused by our association with Israel gas doubled in price. In 1975 our minimum wage could buy several gallons of gas when gas was .50/gallon and the minimum wage was $1.95/hour. One could buy 4 gallons of gas for one hour of work. It is less than 2 gallons per hour of wage today. Thank you environmentalists. We must begin to hold these environmental groups responsible for what they have done with our economy and hold them accountable through what ever means possible! They have no problem with what they are doing to us. This is all propaganda. No reliable sources or names of organizations that can substantiate these untruths. Who did the testing let's see names and results not lies.
I have a hard time believing that these fluids are working their way up against gravity when this drilling is occuring over 11,000 feet underground? Who could afford to spend millions of dollars to drill wells for water this deep. Environmentalists lie is what this article should say. Our country did not have a financial problem in mid 2000 until we saw the cost of gas go up. People who commuted to work had to make a choice between their job and the cost to commute and their house. This, the lack of drilling because of environmentalists and the commodity speculators destroyed our country plus the democratic house and senate who let people purchase homes when they could not afford them destroyed America.
You must be a Republican who does not venture far from the ill-conceived opinions of the drug addict Limbaugh.
Jorge- Wow! is all I can say. That may be the dumbest thing I've ever heard.
Really Jorge. Growing up in Central Nebraska I heard how the farm chemicals wouldn't get into the ground water. My cousins (farmers) now can't drink their water. I also heard how we couldn't suck the Ogalala aquifier dry yet it is shrinking. The cost of gas is not the biggest problems we have. It is insanely stupid to argue. The big problem is the amount of debt and leverage that THE AVERAGE PERSON had. They bought houses with teaser loans, bought cars with fake equity in the houses. I had a 14.00/hr single mom employee refinance her house so she could by a 2nd house. I told her how risky it was but the banker felt she was fine. No idea whate happened to her but I bet she has two houses that were bank owned by now. Far bigger problem than gas my friend.
We are literally killing ourselves for oil.
And anyone or anything else that gets in our way!