Frack chemicals and produced water and diesel exhaust can all be toxic!

From an Article by Kristina Marusic, Environmental Health News, July 27, 2018

Stress and depression are higher among those living closest to more and bigger wells.

People who live near unconventional natural gas operations such as fracking are more likely to experience depression, according to a new study.

For the study, which is the first of its kind and published today in Scientific Reports, researchers from the University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins University looked at rates of depression in nearly 5,000 adults living in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale region in 2015.

They found that people living near fracking-related operations are more likely to be depressed than the general population, and that stress and depression went up among people living closest to more and bigger natural gas wells.

“Previously we’ve looked at the links between unconventional natural gas development and things like asthma exacerbations, migraine headaches and fatigue,” study co-author Joan Casey, a postdoctoral scholar at UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health, told EHN. “The next step was thinking about mental health, because we had a lot of anecdotal reports of sleep disturbances and psychosocial stress related to unconventional natural gas development.”

By the end of 2015, 9,669 wells had been drilled in Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale, and by 2016, the region led the nation in shale gas production. While there have been other small studies on the links between fracking and depression, this is the first to investigate a link between the two using a validated survey among a larger population.

Related: Fracking chemicals “imbalance” the immune system

The researchers compared data on the number of wells, the phase of extraction, and the volume of production in order to group residents into categories of “very low,” “low,” “medium,” and “high” levels of exposure to fracking operations. To assess the severity of depression symptoms, they used a patient health questionnaire that included questions like, “How often have you been bothered by feeling down, depressed, hopeless?”

“People in the highest group of exposure were 1.5 times more likely to have mild depression symptoms than those in very low exposure group,” Casey said, noting that the greatest increases in rates of depression occurred among people with mild to moderate symptoms living near high-volume fracking operations.

“Based on our observations, it seems like living near unconventional natural gas development may not cause an increase in diagnoses of severe major depressive disorders, but might exacerbate symptoms in those with mild or moderate depression, and create some depression and stress in otherwise healthy people,” she added.

In order to minimize over-reporting of depression symptoms among people concerned about the industry’s environmental and health impacts, survey participants weren’t informed that the study was related to fracking. While that strengthened the study, Casey pointed out that it also limited their ability to examine the causes of depression in those living near fracking operations.

“Some people in these communities might have positive associations with natural gas extraction,” she pointed out. “Maybe they’re leasing their land and getting economic benefits, so it’s actually lessening their symptoms, while others may only be getting exposures and have concerns about its health impacts, which could be worsening their symptoms.”

The researchers also looked at electronic health records to determine whether there was an increase in physician-diagnosed sleep disorders or prescriptions for sleep aids in the region, but did not observe an increase in those instances associated with proximity to fracking operations.

Another question unanswered by the study is whether exposure to the chemicals being released into the environment could play a role in the increase of depression symptoms among those living near unconventional natural gas operations.

“I think we’ve probably now done enough epidemiological studies showing the links between unconventional natural gas extraction and health,” Casey said. “The next step will be to tease apart what our exposure pathways are.”

“Is this being caused by air pollution and volatile organic compounds? Is it more about perception and psychosocial stressors than actual exposure? We just don’t know the answers to these questions, and I think to be able to move forward, we have to start unraveling those mysteries.”

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Fracking wastewater is very toxic

In W. Virginia, frack wastewater may be messing with hormones

From an Article by Brian Bienkowski, Environmental Health News, April 6, 2016

<<< Waste leaching from frack disposal wells are the likely source of a spike in endocrine-disrupting compounds in downstream waterways — a troubling sign given the roughly 36,000 disposal sites across the U.S. >>>

Water around and downstream from a fracking wastewater disposal facility in West Virginia contains compounds that may harm fish health by messing with endocrine systems, according to a new study.

Researchers found high levels of endocrine disruption activity in the water near or downstream from the wastewater site in Fayetteville, West Virginia. The study, published today in the journal Science of the Total Environment, adds to evidence that some chemicals in hydraulic fracturing waste are hormone-mimickers or blockers and are leaching out of wastewater disposal wells and into nearby water, potentially impacting fish and human health.

Fracking, or hydraulic fracturing, is a process that uses horizontal drilling and high volume fluid injections to release oil and gas. Along with water, the injections contain sand and a mix of chemicals—some of which have been linked to cancer, hormone impacts, and reproductive problems. It’s estimated that every well produces more than one million gallons of wastewater, which is eventually pumped into disposal wells.

There are an estimated 36,000 fracking disposal sites in the U.S. and little testing has been done on nearby surface water, said lead author Christopher Kassotis, a postdoctoral fellow at Duke University.

Kassotis and other university and federal researchers collected water upstream, downstream and around a wastewater facility that has a disposal well, holding ponds and storage tanks—all used to house excess wastewater from drilling. There is a small stream flowing through the site, which flows into Wolf Creek. Wolf Creek flows into the New River, which is used for some people’s drinking water.

Samples near the site and downstream had “considerably higher” activity for a number of hormones, including estrogen, androgen and thyroid receptors, than reference samples in the watershed far from any disposal sites.

“What’s really interesting is that they sampled from different sites that are in different places in watershed,” said Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology at The University of Texas at Austin who was not involved in the study. “It clearly shows substantial difference in endocrine activity looking upstream and downstream.”

The activity is worrisome for local fish—such contamination seems to affect the reproductive development of some fish species, which can lead to threatened populations. In recent years researchers are finding more “intersex” fish—male fish with some female reproductive parts—and believe the culprit is endocrine-disrupting chemicals in water.

“Sometimes we forget fish are a really important part of the ecosystem,” Gore said.

Properly functioning hormones are crucial throughout people’s entire lives, Gore said. “During development all parts of the body are going through rapid change. Most of these changes are orchestrated or at least influenced by these hormones,” Gore said. “These changes, even at really low levels, have impacts on biological development.”

And adults need normal endocrine function too, she added. “Too much or too little of any hormone, you get sick.”

Industry representatives pushed back, saying that the concentrations of compounds found do not warrant health concerns.

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals “are found in just about everything we use on a day to day basis, including dyes, perfumes, plastics, personal care products, detergents and cleaning agents,” said Seth Whitehead, a researcher at an outreach program launched by the Independent Petroleum Association of America called Energy In Depth, in an emailed response.

“Concentration level is far more relevant than merely detecting EDCs,” he added.

Susan Nagel, senior author of the study and an associate professor at the University of Missouri, said the levels found were within the range or higher than the level known to impact the health of aquatic organisms.

“In many cases, even with considerable dilution, levels of endocrine-disrupting contaminants would still be capable of disrupting the development of fish, amphibians, and other aquatic organisms,” the authors wrote.

“In many cases … levels of endocrine-disrupting contaminants would still be capable of disrupting the development of fish, amphibians, and other aquatic organisms.”-study authors

While single fracking wells use about 50 chemicals, about 1,000 different chemicals are used by the industry, according to previous research. An estimated 100 of these chemicals are known endocrine disruptors.

While some known endocrine-disrupting compounds were identified in the current study, it’s unclear which of these chemicals were responsible for the endocrine activity in West Virginia.

Also the authors point out that the injection well studied may accept wastewater from other industries, which could also contain endocrine-disrupting compounds.

The findings aren’t the first time frack waste has been linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals.

Nagel and colleagues previously reported that water near Colorado fracking drill sites had much higher endocrine-disrupting activity than other nearby water.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net