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WEEKLYPRESS.COM · UCREVIEW.COM · AUGUST 10 · 2011 Fracking Hurting Health Right Now continued from page 1


pain, muscle tremors, diz- ziness, racing heart and other cardiac symptoms for months. They live not far from where the Susquehan- na River began bubbling with gas after Chesapeake Energy began drilling and fracking nearby. The Stiles abandoned their home last November, but they contin- ue to have symptoms. Ar- senic and barium were con- firmed in their blood tests at high levels; and radium 226 was also confirmed in their water. They have been told by one doctor to ex- pect to get leukemia within two years. The last time I spoke with them, a few weeks ago, their daughter had been hospitalized with mysterious seizures.


As disturbing as all this is, one fact stood out as extraordinarily disturb- ing to me. Chesapeake En- ergy technicians came to the Stiles’ home last fall to take air samples from their shower, they told me. Long after the Stiles and their daughter stopped drinking their water, they had con- tinued to take showers in their home with water they believe was contaminated by Chesapeake’s gas drill- ing and fracking operations nearby (vertical drilling happens before the frack- ing stage, and many con- taminants including meth- ane, arsenic, barium, and radioactive materials can be disturbed and released into the environment from the drilling stage before fracking even begins).Once


their daughter almost passed out in the shower. But Chesapeake, the drill- ing company, has never told the Stiles what those air samples revealed about the fumes in the shower. So the Stiles, even while they urgently seek medical care, cannot tell doctors and tox- icologists what they were exposed to. Unfortunately it’s not just one company or one county being impacted. In Southwestern Pennsylva- nia, a family in which two members have experienced severe abdominal pain, sore throats, mouth ulcers and other symptoms for over a year after gas frack- ing operations began near- by, has also been forced to move out of their home. Their doctor told them the


air contamination from gas drilling is even worse than the water contamination. The son has been so sick he’s had to miss the better part of a year of school. In their case, several animals have died and arsenic levels in their blood have spiked. It may be that ar- sine gas, which travels through the air as fumes emitted by water impacted by gas drilling, can cause some of the intense symp- toms being experienced by this and other families. But they are not getting any help from either the gas drilling company or the state; in fact, their family has been split apart – made homeless – as the mother struggles to keep her job while taking care of her sick children.


The health impacts from gas drilling are so new, and the chemicals and other contaminants brought up by the drilling and frack- ing, compressor stations and condensate tanks, pipelines and frack pits, are so little understood, that the current wave of families whose health is being severely impacted by fracking in Pennsylvania are literally guinea pigs for a process being sold to the public as “clean.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. High-volume hori- zontal hydraulic fracturing for methane gas (fracking for short) is dirty, destruc- tive and high-impact from start to finish. The EPA recently advised the fami- lies in Bradford County who were impacted by the


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Chesapeake Energy blow- out there last April, that they must not even wash their dishes in their tap water, which now has mul- tiple contaminants includ- ing, in at least one case, radioactive materials. Turned on your tap recent- ly and found it safe to wash your hands, take a shower, cook, wash dishes and even drink that water? Taken some deep breaths inside your home and felt safe do- ing so? Imagine what these impacted families who are being hurt right now are going through, and please take steps, if you are able, to educate yourself and to stand up to protect them – protecting Philly while you’re at it! T he Delaware River Basin Commission plans to issue final regula- tions to enable fracking in our watershed as early as this September, so all these impacts may soon show up directly upstream from Philadelphia. To protect our neighbors is to protect ourselves. To learn more, please go to protectingourwaters. com and to demonstrate publicly, please attend the Shale Gas Outrage demon- stration on September 7th in Philadelphia to protect air, water, earth and hu- man health from dirty gas drilling. More information at shalegasoutrage.org.


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