07/26/2019
The 6th edition of the fracking science Compendium from Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility finds signs of damage to fish, mollusks, songbirds, waterfowl, reptiles, and other wildlife.
Animals serve as sentinels for chemical exposures that may also affect human residents who share their environment. In addition, animals perform ecosystem services essential to human existence, as confirmed by a landmark United Nations report in May 2019. For both reasons, harm to wildlife by fracking operations has consequences for public health.
Birds and other wildlife have been poisoned by fracking wastewater held in open pits, while spills and discharges of fracking waste have precipitated mass die-offs of fish, as documented in Ohio, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania.
Freshwater mussels, which are endangered throughout North America, accumulate contaminants, including strontium, when fracking wastewater is discharged through sewage treatment plants.
Chemicals in fracking waste are toxic to, or otherwise disrupt development in, many fish and amphibian species. In remote locations in Pennsylvania, streams once classified as high-quality brook trout habitat had no fish at all after the arrival of drilling and fracking operations. Overall, aquatic habitats impacted by fracking activities show decreased biodiversity.
Water fleas (Daphnia spp.), the basis of freshwater aquatic food chains, become unable to vertically navigate through water columns upon exposure to trace amounts of fracking fluid.
In West Virginia, populations of Louisiana Waterthrush, which rely on aquatic food sources, have declined in areas of drilling and fracking.
Light and noise pollution from oil and gas production disrupt wildlife behavior, including in protected areas and critical habitats of endangered species, and have been linked to mass die-offs of waterfowl and declines in songbird populations in Alberta, Canada and New Mexico. Chronic noise from drilling and fracking operations interferes with the ability of birds to respond to acoustic cues.
Oil and gas infrastructure, including compressor stations, has caused declines in grassland songbirds in Canada.
Sand mining operations in Texas are imperiling the dunes sagebrush lizard.
The proposed route of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline cuts through critical habitat for four endangered species.
A 2019 study found that forest disturbances driven by drilling and fracking activities are altering the abundance of songbird populations in central Appalachia, particularly harming species whose habitats are forest interiors.
Well pad construction hastens the spread of invasive non-native plant species which harms wildlife habitat.
According to economists, the cost of wildlife habitat fragmentation due to fracking is $3.5-4.45 billion.
See footnotes 89, 90, 241, 246, 247, 255, 311, 326, 406, 434, 678, 693, 925, 1111, 1112, 1276.
Read the science, get the facts.
Download the Compendium at:
https://concernedhealthny.org/compendium/
https://www.psr.org/blog/resource/compendium-of-scientific-medical-and-media-findings-demonstrating-risks-and-harms-of-fracking
Photo: Julie Dermansky Photography, 2018, deer near gas storage tank in Alpine, Texas.
