The Real Cost of Fracking (20 page)

Veterinary and music students know that all cows eat grass. But cows also eat soil. As Mary and Charlie’s cows were exposed to high sulfate in the soil for over a year, the high sulfate in the soil could also mean that the herd was exposed to high sulfate in the grass. I wondered if the sulfate could be acting directly or indirectly to cause some of the reproductive problems that the Jamesons were having with their cattle. For answers, I turned to local animal and soil scientists and learned that in general, higher levels of sulfate in the soil would mean higher levels of sulfate in the grass, and that because sulfur is chemically similar to selenium, too much of one could mean a decrease in the absorption of the other.
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Why be concerned with selenium? Selenium needs to be at just the right level in the body, or things go wrong reproductively: both too much and too little will cause cows to abort and calves to be born dead or weak.
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For more than thirty years tending dairy cattle and for more than twenty years raising beef, the Jamesons had never thought about selenium levels: whatever their herd was getting in the grass must be perfect because their cows had always been healthy, with little or no loss of calves.

Things started going very wrong for their cattle soon after Charlie and Mary discovered wastewater in their cow pasture on May Day 2010. On that very day, a three-year-old cow aborted, and a few days later, several cows blocked their calves from nursing, leading to the death of one of the calves.
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For the Jamesons, such death and behavior in their herd were unusual, and they made a mental note of it. But these losses were nothing compared to what they would endure the following season, the second living with a shale gas well behind the barn.

As we walked off the well pad on our October 2011 visit, Charlie pointed to his herd, also on the move, the calves trailing the adults single file behind the boss cow. I was far away but close enough to discern that the last six animals are smaller, and that these must be the survivors, the only calves remaining from last season, where eleven out of a total of seventeen calves were lost. I wondered what happened to the others. Three of these calves died between one and two months of age, withering away, unable to stand or to take nourishment. Mary and Charlie described pulling dead calves—seven—and said that one calf was born alive but was too ill to suckle. All of the dams (mothers) of these calves were directly exposed to the chemicals in the wastewater, and the contaminated soil and grass, and their calves indirectly so, in utero. The wastewater chemicals potentially included drilling and hydraulic fracturing fluid additives as well as the organic compounds, heavy metals, and radioactive elements brought to the surface during hydraulic fracturing. Searching for answers, the Jamesons followed the advice of the state veterinarian and sent the ill calf and a stillborn calf for necropsy.

The necropsy report on the Jamesons’ calves was most remarkable for what it didn’t include rather than what it did. Surprisingly, there was no mention of this herd’s recent exposure to shale gas wastewater and to the subsequent quarantine—it was as if it didn’t happen. Because the wastewater was analyzed for inorganics, this presented an unusual opportunity to screen the livers of both calves for all of the specific minerals and metals that had seeped into the cattle’s pasture. While some chemicals were tested, others—including barium, potassium, sodium, fluoride, chloride, sulfate, and strontium—were not. It is especially hard to understand why strontium was not tested: strontium was the reason this herd had been quarantined, the reason Mary and Charlie had lost thousands of dollars, and the reason people were asking questions about the safety of their meat. By being chemically similar to calcium, strontium can replace calcium in the body and, in so doing, poses a serious threat to young growing animals, including the human variety.
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Vitamin E and selenium levels were checked, and both calves had low levels. Whatever the cause, low levels of vitamin E and selenium are fairly common in beef cattle in Pennsylvania and are a likely reason for the high rate of stillborn calves in this herd. Case closed, end of discussion? I didn’t think so. The necropsy report failed to answer the big question that arose from these results, the question that desperately needed to be answered: what caused the low levels of vitamin E and selenium on a farm that has had very low calf losses for over fifty years and has never supplemented the herd? Typically, something has to change to tip healthy cattle over the edge—perhaps the management, or maybe a bad winter, or bad forage.

But according to Mary and Charlie, none of these things had changed. The only things that did change were the presence of a shale gas well—less than a hundred feet from their barn door—and a wastewater impoundment, adjacent to their pasture and within two hundred feet from the creek and pond where their cattle drink. As mentioned, the connection to the wastewater exposure and the low selenium levels was most likely the interaction between selenium and sulfate. The word
interaction
is key because we must be concerned not only with the interactions between the individual chemicals associated with the drilling process, but also with the interactions between these chemicals in the body and, as in Mary and Charlie’s herd, the interactions between these chemicals and other substances found in the environment.

Back in Mary and Charlie’s kitchen, we talked again about the eleven calves they had lost. The death that frustrated these farmers the most was that of the calf that was too weak to suckle and never received any colostrum (first milk produced by the dam that contains antibodies and nutrients), the calf they brought in from the pasture and tried to save but couldn’t, the calf that was euthanized at less than a week old for necropsy and diagnosed with
E. coli
septicemia. We talked about how calves become infected with
E. coli.
I asked if the dam was ill, if the placenta or the umbilical cord was infected, if the calf had any wounds, how clean the barn was. They had thought of all these things and reviewed them endless times. Everything was fine, they said, except this calf had absolutely no suckle reflex.

Septicemia is defined as the presence of disease-producing organisms or their toxins in the blood, and
E. coli
is the most common bacterial cause of septicemia in calves. Mary and Charlie understand that because their calf had a poor suckle reflex, it likely didn’t receive enough colostrum from the dam and was more susceptible to infections. But because the calf’s immunoglobulin G levels were not checked, they’ll never know for sure. What they do know is that septicemia and a high incidence of calf deaths on a well-kept farm with good husbandry are highly unusual; what they don’t know is exactly which chemicals were used to drill and hydraulically fracture the shale gas well on their farm, and if any of these chemicals acted as immunosuppressants to cause the problems they experienced. Can immunity be affected by gas drilling operations? While there are no definitive answers, one study estimates that nearly 40 percent of the known chemicals used in drilling and hydraulic fracturing for gas may cause immunosuppression.
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There was another interesting finding on the necropsy report. The stillborn calf also suffered from goiter, an enlargement of the thyroid gland. This is not a common diagnosis in cows or calves, so why might it appear in this case? More than a third of the known chemicals used in drilling and hydraulic fracturing for gas may cause endocrine disruption,
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and this diagnosis may be a manifestation of such an exposure in this herd.

I asked the Jamesons if they had approached the drilling company to inquire about the exact chemicals used during drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Charlie said they hadn’t, but he had heard that anyone can, and the drilling company would provide the names of the chemicals. Later I checked the industry website,
fracfocus.org
, billed as the site where one can get information about the chemicals used at each well (that is, only nonproprietary chemicals, and only after the hydraulic fracturing is complete and too late to use for predrilling testing). No information was provided for the Jameson well.

We talked about neighbors, about farming, about the land. After their experiences with just one shale gas well, these farmers were rightly worried about the consequences of five more. After watching the US Department of Energy hearing held in Washington County in 2011, Charlie and Mary said they were amazed how people stepped forward to tell their woes, how one woman said she couldn’t sit on her front porch anymore because she’s right next to a compressor station.

“Yes, this is terrible,” Charlie said. “After they get all this going [the full build-out of wells], are we gonna lose our vegetation? That’s my question. What do you think? Do you think we’re gonna lose our leaves, everything? Is this gonna be barren ground? Is this gonna be like the coal regions of Pennsylvania?”

He looked straight at me, and it was clear he wanted an answer immediately. It was something he had been thinking about for a while, something he found deeply disturbing. But he threw me off balance—I wasn’t prepared for this. I’m more comfortable talking about animal sickness and death.

“I don’t know” is all I could muster.

Charlie hadn’t finished his question. “Eventually this is gonna hit our atmosphere. It won’t happen overnight. But eventually, it [the vegetation, the soil] will all be dead. It’s a possibility, right?”

I mentioned a study in West Virginia, where application of hydraulic fracturing fluids to a forest severely affected the trees and ground vegetation.
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I described several cases in Colorado, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania where vegetation was killed in areas where gas came up to the surface along fault lines and fracture lines after hydraulic fracturing, and along ruptured pipelines.

Charlie shook his head and said that he had heard of people being told to move away when their water became contaminated. I’ve heard this many times, too, and I told Mary and Charlie that I
know
people who have moved several times and people who are planning to move. I told the Jamesons that sometimes people stay, despite their doctors’ telling them to move. They stay because they can’t bear to leave their homes, and sometimes they will stay in their homes with the windows shut and will not go out.

There was a long silence between us—we had covered a lot of ground, and it seemed that we had all learned something from each other today. Now, I had no more questions, and the Jamesons needed to attend to their herd. As I was preparing to leave, Charlie mentioned that I should see the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania while I was in the area. I was anxious to move on to my next interview, but his enthusiasm was contagious. He described how people come from all over to see the canyon and there was no way that I could visit the area and not see it. How could I resist? It was probably just what I needed to cheer me up after hearing their story, so I headed off to see this natural wonder.

On the way, I observed gas pipelines being laid every few hundred feet, randomly crisscrossing the road. It seemed that no part of Tioga County would be untouched. I later would have a look at the permits issued in the area and the plans for drilling, and indeed, no area is to be untouched. However, on reaching Pine Creek Gorge, the beautiful area known as the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania, I was transported to another place and time. Like the gorges in my beloved Finger Lakes region of New York, this spectacular gorge was formed by the action of ancient glaciers, in this case, the overflow of a glacial lake. The beauty of upstate New York and northern Pennsylvania is captured in the view from the rim of the canyon. This is a land of farms and lakes where agriculture and tourism have always been the major drivers of the economy. The geology and the action of glaciers make this area special, but our geology also places us at a crossroads. Do we want to risk sacrificing this natural wonder for the temporary gain of extracting gas from far below, or do we find other energy sources that allow us to protect the land and water?

We are told that we can have it both ways. The experience of the Jameson family suggests otherwise.

As of July 2012, the Jamesons’ cattle seemed to be back to normal, and sod was planted in the pasture to restore the hay fields. As he does every spring and summer, Charlie harvested his hay fields to provide feed for his cattle. It was then that he discovered that the staples used to lay the sod and the blasting wire left in the field contaminated his hay, rendering it useless. The drilling company, always the good neighbor, offered to buy the hay at half the going price. And those five additional wells that it planned to drill in the next few months? The company increased the size of the well pad to three acres and informed the Jamesons that the new plan is to drill a total of
ten
wells on their property. As of late 2013, however, Mary and Charlie have lost thousands of dollars and have yet to receive a dime in royalties. The only gas that has been extracted from their land has been vented to the atmosphere or flared off into oblivion.

SEVEN

SHARON AND WADE
Disrespect of Farmers and Farming

Although in the United States, as in most developed countries, the population has steadily moved away from rural areas in the last fifty years,
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the fact remains that without farming we would have no food. But farming is a demanding and financially risky business that is subject to many external forces that can influence the farmer’s bottom line. The oil and gas industry generally takes the position that the financial gains that farmers reap from leasing land for gas drilling can provide needed income with little or no impact on food production. The reality is far more complex and varied. Farmers tend to have independent streaks, which is completely contrary to leasing land to the fossil fuel industry. Once the land is leased, control is ceded to the company, so that the use of prime farmland may be compromised for years. Even in the best of circumstances, access roads and truck traffic can divide pastures and affect animal well-being. In more serious cases, leaks from waste-water impoundments, well blowouts, and faulty well casings can affect animal health and reproduction, calling into question the safety of our food supply. This is the story of one colorful, strong-willed beef cattle farmer who has experienced little financial gain and many serious consequences.