Resolved: The United States federal government should ban hydraulic fracturing.

“For sustainable agriculture, fracking is a disaster,” says Jaffe. The gas rush started in the South and West, but has spread to the East and now affects 34 states. Under much of West Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York lies a 400-million-year-old geographic formation called the Marcellus Shale. Although estimates vary, the shale may hold 50 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, enough to meet New York state’s needs for 50 years. To see what fracking can do to food production, Jaffe has only to look at what has happened to some of his colleagues in nearby Pennsylvania, where the first fracked well came into production in 2005, and where there are now more than 1,500.

Last year, the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture quarantined 28 cattle belonging to Don and Carol Johnson, who farm about 175 miles southwest of Jaffe. The animals had come into wastewater that leaked from a nearby well that showed concentrations of chlorine, barium, magnesium, potassium, and radioactive strontium. In Louisiana, 16 cows that drank fluid from a fracked well began bellowing, foaming and bleeding at the mouth, then dropped dead. Homeowners near fracked sites complain about a host of frightening consequences, from poisoned wells to sickened pets to debilitating illnesses.

The Marcellus Shale itself contains ethane, propane, butane, arsenic, cobalt, lead, chromium — toxins all. Uranium, radium, and radon make the shale so radioactive that companies sometimes drop Geiger counters into wells to determine whether they have reached the gas-rich deposits. But those compounds are almost benign compared to the fracking fluids that drillers inject into the wells. At least 596 chemicals are used in fracking, but the companies are not required by law to divulge the ingredients, which are considered trade secrets. According to a report prepared for the Ground Water Protection Council, a national association of state agencies charged with protecting the water supply, a typical recipe [PDF] might include hydrochloric acid (which can damage respiratory organs, eyes, skin, and intestines), glutaraldehyde (normally used to sterilize medical equipment and linked to asthma, breathing difficulties, respiratory irritation, and skin rashes), N,N-dimethyl formamide (a solvent that can cause birth defects and cancer), ethylene glycol (a lethal toxin), and benzene (a potent carcinogen). Some of these chemicals stay in the ground. Others are vented into the air. Many enter the water table or leach into ponds, streams, and rivers.

For the most part, state and federal governments have turned a blind eye to the problems brought about by fracking. The Environmental Protection Agency claims that it has no jurisdiction to investigate matters related to food production, a contention disputed by Rep. Maurice Hinchey (D-N.Y.), who wrote a report urging the EPA to study all issues associated with fracking. A concerned farmer who prefers not to be identified forwarded me an email written to him by Jim Riviere, the director of the Food Animal Residue Avoidance Databank, a group of animal science professors that tracks incidents of chemical contamination in livestock. Riviere wrote that his group receives up to 10 requests per day from veterinarians dealing with exposures to contaminants, including the byproducts of fracking. Nonetheless, the United States Department of Agriculture has slashed funding to his group. “We are told by the newly reorganized USDA that chemical contamination is not their priority,” Riviere wrote.

“The dangers of fracking to the food supply are not something that’s been investigated very much,” said Emily Wurgh of Food and Water Watch, an environmental group based in Washington, D.C. “We have been trying to get members of Congress to request studies into effects of fracking on agriculture, but we haven’t gotten much traction.”

Full-scale commercial production of shale gas is not expected in the UK for at least the next couple of years, so the scientists also considered future scenarios, including one in which shale gas was a key component in electricity production and one in which it was not.

The results of this analysis suggested that the future scenario in which shale gas comprised 1 per cent of electricity production was more sustainable than the one in which it comprised 8 per cent.

In a report released in 2016, the Committee on Climate Change found exploitation of shale gas on a significant scale would only be compatible with UK carbon budgets if certain tests were satisfied.

These tests included limiting the greenhouse gas emissions produced during fracking development, as well as ensuring shale gas displaced existing imports as opposed to increasing overall gas consumption.

“Existing uncertainties over the nature of the exploitable shale gas resource and the potential size of a UK industry make it impossible to know how difficult it will be to meet the tests,” committee member Professor Jim Skea said upon the report’s release.

When considering overall sustainability, Professor Azapagic and her collaborators found that considerable changes would be required to make fracking as sustainable as wind and solar power – notably a 329-fold reduction in environmental impacts.

Opponents of fracking said this research provides further evidence that renewable energy is a better investment than shale gas extraction.

“The case for fracking is simply falling apart,” said Emma Gibson, senior campaigner at Greenpeace UK.

“The Government’s own figures show that the amount of electricity generated by burning gas is expected to halve by 2025, and by then renewables will have overtaken gas as Britain’s main power source.

“The UK doesn’t need fracking in its energy future and can’t afford it either if Britain wants to honour its climate commitments. If Theresa May wants to keep her promise of a healthier environment for the next generation, she should ditch fracking and go all-out for solar and wind power instead.”

Babies born less than two miles from a fracking site are at risk of health problems that could hamper them later in life, new research has found.

Mothers who lived within 1km (0.6 miles) of a fracking site saw a 25 per cent increase in the likelihood that their child would be born at low birth weight, be born prematurely or have other congenital issues, the study found.

Being born at low birth weight (less than 5.5lbs) has been linked to a number of future health risks, including higher risks of asthma and ADHD, as well as poorer education attainment and future professional success.

Researchers from Princeton University studied birth data for 1.1million children born in Pennsylvania between 2004 and 2013 and mapped their mother’s address against fracking sites.

Living within a kilometre of a well site had biggest impact on lowering average birth weights, cases of low birth weight, and a decreases in babies’ overall health score, they found.

The overall health score gives a measure of babies' prematurity, any birth defects, or health issues at birth.

However, there were impacts visible up to 3km (1.8 miles) away, although these were about one third to half the size.

“Overall, the results suggest that the introduction of fracking reduces health among infants born to mothers living within 3 km of a well site during pregnancy," the paper, published in the Science Advances journal states.

“We find the largest effects for mothers living within 1 km of a site — a 25 per cent increase in the probability of a low – birth weight birth (<2500 g) and significant declines in average birth weight, as well as in an index of infant health.”

“Low birth weight is a risk factor for numerous negative outcomes, including infant mortality, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, asthma, lower test scores, lower schooling attainment, lower earnings, and higher rates of social welfare program participation,” it adds.

These negative impacts could be as a result of the heavy industrial traffic and air pollution which comes from living near a fracking site.

There are also cases where polluted water used in fracking has contaminated water supplies.

Fracking is a major source of energy in America and there are nearly 130,000 registered well sites across the United States.

Its expansion in the US has led to a cheap energy boom and prompted the Conservatives to push for a UK "fracking revolution" in their 2017 manifesto.

This is despite data showing that it can lead to water supplies being contaminated with radioactive material,and geologists warning the UK’s shale gas reserves have been “overhyped”.

Fears over its environmental and health impacts have led to protests at sites prospecting for shale gas across England.

"Given the growing evidence that pollution affects babies in utero, it should not be surprising that fracking, which is a heavy industrial activity, has negative effects on infants,” said one of the report's authors, Henry Putnam, a professor of economics and public affairs at Princeton.

There is a clear impact on health, though “thankfully” it appears to be localised.

The authors say this latest study should be looked at by policy makers deciding whether to permit more fracking sites, it should also be cause for more research to identify the exact cause of the health impact.

“While we know pollution from hydraulic fracturing impacts our health, we do not yet know where that pollution is coming from -- from the air or water, from chemicals onsite, or an increase in traffic,” said co-author Katherine Meckel, assistant professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

In 2012, the State of Vermont banned fracking with law 152, passed by the State Legislature. With this law, it was also prohibited to collect, store, or treat fracking wastewater within the State (law 152, 2012). In 2017, the governor of the State of Maryland banned fracking with law 1325.

In 2019, the State of Oregon Legislative Assembly banned fracking with law 2623, which, in Article 4, stipulates that this prohibition is necessary “for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health and safety.” In 2019, the State of Washington banned fracking with Act 5145. The same year, the Governor of the State of Florida Office issued Executive Order 19-12 for water protection and ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to take the necessary measures to strongly oppose fracking in Florida.
In Canada, the Province of New Brunswick banned fracking with Regulation 2015-28 (Legal Information Institute of Canada, 2015). The Province of Quebec prohibited Fracking, but only when applied to shale gas (CBC, 2018).