Which of the Chemicals Used in the Hydraulic Fracturing Process is the Most Toxic?

Contrary to popular media there is no simple answer to this question. While the website The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TDEX) offers a comprehensive excel spreadsheet of the products, chemicals, and their health effects, it fails to mention the variety of factors that are important in determining what will make the identified chemical toxic to the public. 

Will There Be Wide Spread Health Problems?

There is a general assumption that because of the nature or the toxicity of the chemicals used in natural gas development there will be widespread health issues. To explain why this assumption is wrong, we need to first define the word "toxicity."

Toxicity is defined by the Agency of Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (a federal agency) as the “degree to which a substance is poisonous or can cause injury.” The key word here is “degree,” it is the reason why the answer is simple not.  The degree is the “how toxic.”

No Exposure means No Toxicity

Using Fear to Communicate Risk

Our fear for cancer has caused more suffering than cancer itself. Rachel Carson in her book Silent Spring, told us that the toxic chemicals that we fear are no longer in our nightmares or at the factories over the hill but that these chemicals are now all around us- touching everything we do; the air we breathe, the water we drink and soil we plant in.

Looking at the issue of using natural gas well brine on roads

This was correspondence written in response to a discussion where a legislative body wanted to ban the spread of natural gas brine of roads.

This issue needs to be looked at objectively as with any other decision making process regarding the management of wastewater. It means looking at permit limits or standards; in this case, specifically the role of standards for human health protection. Standardized values remove emotional subjectivity from the decision making processes and rely on scientific values. As with any issues that rely on science, there have been too many decisions are being made on emotion and not facts.

Impacts to Health are the Reason that the use of brine is questioned

Anecdotal Evidence versus Scientific Evidence: The Battle over the Shale Health Syndrome

The controversy about the health effects of natural gas exploration and development or “fracking” has taken center stage.  It is mostly about anecdotal evidence that correlates to natural gas development activities. Most environmental health experts agree that correlation does not imply causation.  When someone claims that their illness is caused by an activity that is occurring within their proximity, we need to look not only at the biological relationship between the chemicals present but also at the exposure risk- how is the person coming in contact with the said chemical and then rule out or rule in the chemical as the cause.

Protecting Our Water - Protecting Our Health - Baseline Water Tests

If you are on a public water supply and you turn on your faucet for a drink of water, you expect a consistent level of water quality; free of contaminants. If you are on a private well and you turn on your faucet, you really do not know what to expect.

Talking about Shale Health

There is a lot of information online about environmental health issues related to Marcellus Shale Development. Sifting through it and finding credible information is difficult: everyone appears to have some bias or the other. This does not make it any easier to discern the truth from the fiction.

This ongoing controversy surrounding the health impacts of natural gas exploration, especially in New York State has consumed many people's lives; even though New York State has yet to see any of the controversial gas exploration, many folks still considered the development as a potential threat to our picturesque valleys.

Elk Creek and Schenevus Valley

We look across the Stateline into Pennsylvania to give us an idea what our health prognosis will be when and if gas exploration and development arrives. For those who can't make the journey to see firsthand, the internet becomes our window. What we see online coupled with the unknown has triggered an unprecedented scale of people searching for information on environmental health related to shale development.

Turning to the web

According to the Pew Research Center Survey from May 12, 2011, of the 74% of adults polled, 80% have “looked online for information about any of the 15 health topics asked about” which translated to more than half of all adults.  People are turning to the web for information more than any source. While this may have many benefits there are some downsides. For one, not all information online is true, nor is it all reliable nor does it have any value.

Fragments of information drawn from the internet paint an incomplete picture.

Something to think about… Print books and journal articles have keepers of the information; editors, proofreaders and peer reviewers who are competent on the subject matter being published.  Not anyone can write a useful and a well-used text book, however anyone can write an article online and write it on any subject matter- there are no gatekeepers.  People present their personal opinions as fact and substantiate their opinions with opinions found elsewhere online. All this fragmented information is then put together and presented as a researched factual article or story.

Before you take my word for it, ask yourself, is the internet or the print media the best place to find the factual information you are looking for? My preference, for the most part is my well used and well-worn books written by experts and professionals in the field and for the larger part I rely on the people who I have looked up to, the people who have the time tried information; my mentors.