Sunday, December 7, 2008

What’s in that fracking fluid?

The River Reporter

By SANDY LONGThis e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

"PENNSYLVANIA — It’s something many people in the Upper Delaware region want to know: what chemicals are being used by the natural gas industry in its drilling processes?

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) notes that while companies may keep their fracking “formulas” proprietary, the individual ingredients are public record in Pennsylvania. The agency supplied The River Reporter with a list of chemicals that may be used during the fracking process. Any of them may be present in the wastewater generated and may be stored temporarily in open pits at the site.

We asked researchers at The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) to analyze the list for its potential health effects. TEDX is a non-profit organization that reviews and interprets scientific research focused on the effects of synthetic chemicals on human and animal health. TEDX president Dr. Theo Colborn has published, lectured and testified extensively on the effects of chemicals on the developing endocrine, immune, metabolic and nervous systems.

The tables and graphs presented here were generated by that organization. Of the 59 chemicals on the list, several were synonyms for the same chemical (e.g. Isopropanol, Isopropyl Alcohol, Propan-2-01). When this occurred, the names were combined to create a final list of 54 chemicals.

TEDX staff searched the literature for health effects associated with the 54 chemicals and broke them into 14 different health effect categories commonly used in government toxicological literature. The table below shows the number of chemicals out of the 54 that have effects on at least 10 health categories." More>>>>

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