Sick From Fracking? Doctors, Patients Seek Answers

NPR ^ | 05/15/2012 | Rob Stein

[Labyrinthos]

People living near gas well drilling around the country are reporting similar problems, plus headaches, rashes, wheezing, aches and pains and other symptoms.

No names, places, dates, nothing. Yet, the NPRbots will accept this as the gospel truth.

[thackney]

from the drilling, which is commonly called "fracking."

Only by the ignorante. Drilling is not fracking. Hydraulic fracturing only begins after the drilling is done.

Fracking is only slang for Hydraulic Fracturing.

[thackney]

from the drilling, which is commonly called "fracking."

Only by the ignorant. Drilling is not fracking. Hydraulic fracturing only begins after the drilling is done.

Fracking is only slang for Hydraulic Fracturing.

[tomkat]

Ooops, that I'd grabbed one from a PA job.
That one was from a 20,000 PSI frac near Caldwell, TX

Here's one from a frac in Greene Cty, PA :

(click)

No info on PSI w/that one, but looks like ~10 pumpers.

If young again, I'd go back to the patch.
Was a mudlogger awhile at the tail end of the 70s,
then drove a sand truck for BigRed in NW PA for a year in early 80s.

Good memories .. ears still ringing and hangover flashbacks on occasion   ;-)
Wouldn't trade memories for nuttin' !

[reformedliberal]

Those people are still around. I get emails from one of them warning in shrill tones of doom that the microwave is killing us all. Thee are women (mostly) who will refuse a cup of tea if the water was heated in one.

[thackney]

I googled acetone as a fracking agent and came up with some articles that say its used for such.

Can you link an article that actually shows it used in hydraulic fracturing? I searched "acetone as a fracking agent". None of the articles I read actually substantiated that claim, only used the words somewhere in the article but not in that phrase.

On the public listing of hydraulic fluids, I have not seen it listed.

http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/hydraulic_fracturing/fluids_disclosure.html

http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used

[USS Alaska]

I remember when microwave ovens were new and people were suing because they had gotten cancer or impotence or something else from them. I suspect any new technology is subject to this hysteria.

Speaking of hysteria, what happened to brain cancer caused by those evil cell phones that only evil business men could afford to use in the beginning.

Now that every kid has one, and the freeloaders are getting them on the tax payers dime, there is no harm and no radiation coming from them.

[tomkat]

In my limited time in the industry, there was no acetone used for anything that I recall.
Well, take that back - maybe for cleaning Sharpie grafitti off the break room tables ?

Avg. water table is ~50-100' down.
Avg. frac depth in PA, below impermeable shield rock, is usually => ~1,000 ft down.

Chances of fracking causing groundwater contamination are about 0.
That doesn't rule out foul-ups up top, but most of the site bosses are (rightly) nazis about keepin' the sh!t together.

Smart money will always bet on hysteria/agendas behind unicorn farts like this article.

[thackney]

Those of us who are living in areas in which there is a lot of gas drilling have NOT been able to find out what’s in the fracking fluid.

http://www.halliburton.com/public/projects/pubsdata/hydraulic_fracturing/fluids_disclosure.html

hhttp://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used

http://www.hydraulicfracturingdisclosure.org/fracfocusfind/

I found 324 wells in Bradford County, PA listed in the Fluid Disclosure registry (last link above). The chemicals are listed and their maximum concentrations used by well.

[saganite]

Here is one. Like I said, all the articles that list acetone are of the anti fracking variety. I suspect they all got their information from the same primary source and I don’t know what agency or media source that is. One example should suffice since they are all basically parroting the original source.

http://www.alive.com/articles/view/23262/fracking_in_canada

[Smokin' Joe]

Thanks! I have been around drilling operations for decades, and we haven’t used it on any of the locations I have been on. I have not heard the production folks mention acetone, either.

[StAnDeliver]

"What utter nonsense. This reporter is a novelist fabulist, not a reporter."

Fixed.

[Smokin' Joe]

I also want the gas companies to be honest. Is that too much to ask?

No, it isn't.

[thackney]

It states:

hundreds of chemicals may be used

May, as in maybe, maybe not, we don't know.

The links I provided are actual chemicals used and their maximum concentration. The FracFocus.org site list them by specific wells.

I don't claim to have read every combination, but I haven't found one that uses acetone, and they do not show up on the lists of chemicals considered for use.

[rockinqsranch]

Absolutely. Right on the mark.

[thackney]

Although there are dozens to hundreds of chemicals which could be used as additives, there are a limited number which are routinely used in hydraulic fracturing. The following is a list of the chemicals used most often.

http://fracfocus.org/chemical-use/what-chemicals-are-used

[seton89]

http://www.waymarking.com/gallery/image.aspx?f=1&guid=47aa4933-6dd4-4cd2-b543-e7fa78c6e9ef

[Smokin' Joe]

Thanks, thackney! (no acetone).

[G Larry]

Discovery’s “Frozen Planet” updated in 2011 continues to pretend polar bear populations are dwindling and the polar ice caps are melting.

They do this in the full knowledge of the HUGE increases in Polar Bear populations over the last 50 years and the lack of any warming over the last 12 years.

Then go on to explain how the OIL COMPANIES don’t really mind the melt and the warming.....because it make their operations easier......

These clowns don’t give a damn about the truth or science.
They have an agenda to damn capitalism, energy production, and population growth, as evils that must be overcome.

[susannah59]

I'd vote for the drug lab, some other sort of leak, or the dumping of someone else's chemicals, too.

Never underestimate the power of suggestion: Oh, they said they smelled something bad and then felt sick; wait, I think I smell something too, and yes, there it is, a pain in my head!

I also don't underestimate the number of people hoping to "win the legal lottery" by signing on to a big-money lawsuit. The prospect of that can make healthy people develop all sorts of symptoms.

I'm not saying they weren't smelling something, or even having problems from it, but blaming it on drilling and fracking must seem like a win-win to the NPR folks: stop the eeeeevil oil/gas companies, and make them pay pay pay for "harming" people.