Fracking numbers add up to environmental nightmareBy Heather Leibowitz, Commentary
Published 2:12 pm, Wednesday, November 12, 2014
New Yorkers continue to wait with bated breath for the Health Department's study on fracking, which Gov. Andrew Cuomo says will come by year's end. But does New York really need this study to decide its fate?
Scarcely a month goes by without some new fracking incident adding to the toll of damage done. Just over a year ago, we published our findings in a report called "Fracking by the Numbers." In the report, we looked at key measures of risks to our water, air, land and climate.
Contamination of drinking water is one of the key threats posed by fracking. In reviewing state records, we found more than 1,000 documented cases where dirty drilling has contaminated groundwater or other drinking water sources. While such contamination can happen at several points in the fracking process — spills of fracking fluid, well blowouts, leaks around the well bore — perhaps the greatest threat to our water comes from the toxic waste that fracking generates.
Often laced with cancer-causing and even radioactive material, this fracking waste has leaked from waste pits into groundwater, has been dumped into rivers and streams, and spread onto roadways.
How much of this waste are we talking about? Using state and industry-submitted data, we calculated that
fracking generated 280 billion gallons of toxic wastewater in 2012 alone. That's enough to flood all of New York City in a four-foot toxic lagoon, or fill the Empire State Building more than 1,000 times over.
And yet, this toxic fracking waste is exempt from our nation's hazardous waste laws.
We also looked at how much water is used by fracking—a crucial question, especially in arid Western states in the midst of the fracking frenzy. Again, using data submitted by fracking operators, we calculated that fracking has used 250 billion gallons of fresh water since 2005. And unlike other water uses, to the extent that fracking converts this water into toxic waste that is injected deep down into the ground, water used for fracking is gone for good.
The numbers on fracking look equally appalling with respect to our health, our natural heritage, and the planet.
With a growing number of residents experiencing illness with the onset of nearby fracking operations, we found that fracking operations produced 450,000 tons of air pollution in one year.
As pristine landscapes have been covered with well pads, compressor stations, access roads, and other drilling infrastructure, we estimate that fracking has directly degraded 360,000 acres of land since 2005.
And finally, as fracking boosters have sought to win over the green-minded, we calculated that well completions alone — not counting the rest of fracking operations — have produced 100 million metric tons of global warming pollution since 2005. Looking at the full life cycle of production and use, the global warming impacts of dirty gas could well rival that of coal.
Our calculations understate the true toll of fracking. Fracking also inflicts other damage we did not quantify in our report, ranging from contamination of residential wells to ruined roads to earthquakes near disposal sites.
Viewed in their totality, the numbers on fracking add up to an environmental nightmare. Given the number and severity of threats posed by fracking, constructing a regulatory regime sufficient to protect our water and our health — much less enforcing it at more than 80,000 wells, plus processing and waste disposal sites across the country — seems implausible at best. At the end of the day, protecting our environment and public health will require a ban on fracking.
At the federal level, President Barack Obama can do two things to at least limit the damage. First, as the Bureau of Land management mulls weak rules for fracking on public lands, the president should insist on following a key recommendation of the administration's advisory panel to keep "unique and/or sensitive areas ... off limits to drilling." At a minimum, that means quashing the oil and gas industry's bid to frack inside our national forests, on the doorsteps of our national parks, or in places that provide drinking water for millions of Americans.
Second, the president should call for an end to the loopholes that make fracking exempt from key provisions of our nation's environmental laws.
To the dire fracking numbers presented in our research, we should add a more hopeful one: Last month, the People's Climate March united over 300,000 concerned citizens from across the United States, demonstrating that the public is indeed concerned about fracking and other extractive processes that damage the environment. Perhaps it is time Gov. Andrew Cuomo, Obama and Congress begin to show indications of similar concern.
Heather Leibowitz is the director of Environment New York & Policy Center.http://www.timesunion.com/opinion/article/Fracking-numbers-add-up-to-environmental-nightmare-5888326.php 
