(NaturalNews) Disrupting shale deep within the earth with millions of gallons of water brought into fracking sites mixed with toxic chemicals that remain secret is like playing survival roulette with local inhabitants and Mother Earth.
The one federal law that could have inhibited this vile
practice, the Federal Safe Drinking Water Act, became inapplicable to fracking
due to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.
Vice President Dick Cheney was influential toward providing
this fracking exemption act from safe water concerns. He was the CEO of
Halliburton, a multitask corporation also heavily involved with fracking.
Burdened with an uneven playing field, small environmental
groups and scientists who haven't sold out are attempting to deal with a large
corporate/government monolith rife with corruption, while the media regards the
fracking issue as a "debate," much like they regard the GMO issue
instead of as an issue of survival.
Industry lies and secrets with government support
Thanks to an act passed in 1979 and amended in 1985 known as
the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), frackers don't need to disclose their
chemical components and formulations to any person, group or agency until
they're released for public knowledge.
This happens to be true for all polluting industries,
including those that manufacture herbicides and pesticides, like Monsanto's
Roundup.
This exemption was challenged to no avail by four
environmental groups in Wyoming that applied for disclosure of fracking
materials from the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission. The judge ruled
that the trade secrets should remain intact until further legislation modified
the act itself. Fat chance of that.
It's well known without industry disclosures that benzene
and acrylamide are common cancer-causing constituents of fracking chemicals.
But there are up to 600 others from which frackers choose.
Analyzing materials to determine their chemical composition
is not illegal. But it takes time and money, and the government/corporate
merger that's pillaging the earth and destroying the environment for big bucks
has enough of both to overwhelm the efforts of concerned citizens.
But, thanks to funding from the Passport Foundation Science
Innovation Fund, the University of Missouri and the EPA for a doctoral research
grant, PhD student Christopher Kassotis discovered, "The high levels of
hormone disruption by endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) that we measured,
have been associated with many poor health outcomes, such as infertility,
cancer and birth defects."
These same isolated chemicals disrupt not only the human
body's reproductive hormones but also the glucocorticoid hormone, which affects
mostly cellular carbohydrate metabolism. The chemicals also adversely affect
thyroid hormone receptors.
Kossitis mentions how these chemicals can combine to offer a
synergistic toxic mix that's worse than any one of the isolated chemicals
tested.
Kassotis' samples were from documented fracking spills in
Garfield County, Colorado. Normally, the water-chemical mix used is removed
from the fracking site area, as that water, millions of gallons, winds up
permanently contaminated. Water shortages, who cares? But sometimes Murphy's
Law intervenes and accidents do happen.
Since fracking often occurs up to 8,000 feet deep and
groundwater runs at around 1,000 feet under ground level, who knows how much is
getting into drinking water? It's documented that well contamination is common.
Parts 1 and 2 of the documentary Gasland by Josh Fox are
highly recommended viewing. Ignore the attacks and questions about them. Unless
you are a true believer of what the corporate-government-media throws your way,
of course.
One of the fracking victims interviewed in the first
documentary was a rural homeowner whose well was contaminated. The fracking
group involved donated an oversized reverse osmosis machine. But the machine
was rotted out by the chemicals very quickly. So now he has city water
delivered by tanker trucks.
Contrary to industry shills' claims, those images of tap water burning from the faucets of homes with contaminated wells are not staged.
As fracking continues, disrupting hormones may turn out to
be but one major consequence of many.
Wednesday, June 25, 2014 by: PF Louis
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