Issue link: https://nnumagazine.uberflip.com/i/117854
As a registered nurse living in rural, western Pennsylvania, Katrina Moore is quite aware of the dangers of hydraulic gas fracking, the controversial practice of pumping millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals into natural gas wells to crack open the rock and release more gas. She���s heard news reports of fracking accidents and problems in her part of Butler County. Earlier this year, Moore attended a continuing education class held by her union, the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, about the risks associated with fracking and what nurses should know to recognize the signs of fracking-related illnesses in patients. But this spring, Moore learned she has an even greater stake in the issue: Neighbors on every side of her family home in Chicora have signed leases with gas drilling companies. She only found out about the leases because one neighbor called a meeting to convince more people to sign up. She said she has not been approached by the companies because she does not own the mineral rights to her land; she���s not even really sure who does. Moore, a 50-year-old behavioral health RN at nearby Butler Memorial Hospital, has lived on her 10 acres with her children, husband, horses, chickens, and dogs since 1985. She���s very worried about her family���s health as well as the health of her community. ���They all think it���s perfectly safe,��� said Moore disbelievingly of her neighbors��� attitudes. ���I told them, ���You don���t realize how [the gas companies] are not at all ready to be doing what they���re doing.��� I can���t believe anybody can be so na��ve. I try not to think about it too much because it just makes me want to be sick.��� As others in gas drilling country have learned, fracking has the potential to make them physically sick, very much so. One of the most common stories is of patients developing problems after being exposed to or drinking from a family well that suddenly produces discolored, smelly, or bubbling water. After testing, the water is found to contain high levels of arsenic, methane, benzene, or other chemicals. Another is of family pets and livestock with disrupted reproductive cycles or that even die after drinking from or contact with a creek or pond contaminated with fracking ���uids. And, of course, there are numerous stories of workers accidentally splashed with fracking chemicals who develop serious health problems. Some opponents believe that fracking has the potential to turn huge swaths of America���s farmland toxic, and to contaminate the watersheds that supply drinking water to millions of people living in major metropolitan cities such as Philadelphia and New York City. But in ���ghting the spread of fracking, nurses, doctors, nearby residents, and other environmental activists are ���nding themselves at a severe disadvantage because they lack one critical thing: information. The energy companies conducting fracking are notoriously secretive about their activities, from their position that the names and composition of the chemicals they use in the process are ���trade secrets,��� to the private lease contracts they sign with property owners, to the nondisclosure clauses written into settlements they strike with residents whose property and health are hurt by their operations. Medical professionals are particularly disturbed by the industry���s aggressive protection of data about the kinds of agents they use during the fracking process because they feel that it poses major health risks to the public and that the community has the right to know about what substances people may come into contact with, whether 12 N AT I O N A L N U R S E through the soil they touch, the water they drink and wash in, or the air they breathe. In states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Colorado, the industry and the corporate bill mill group called the American Legislative Exchange Council have sponsored and passed legislation that forbids healthcare providers who receive information about fracking chemicals to share their knowledge with others, perhaps even the patient. One Pennsylvania doctor found that section of the law, known as Act 13, so outrageous that he ���led a federal lawsuit in July to get that part thrown out. ���We need nurses and all health professionals to stand up and push hard for an end to gag orders and nondisclosure clauses that are hurting public health, and to call for a moratorium on fracking to protect us all,��� said Iris Marie Bloom, executive director of a Philadelphia-based anti-fracking nonpro���t group called Protecting Our Waters. ���We want health professionals to demand health impact assessments in every state, in every watershed where fracking is happening. We need to be able to track gas drilling to related health symptoms.��� Moore said that she has been warning neighbors to get their well water tested before fracking starts; she plans to get hers tested and may consider other tests, too. Pennsylvania has millions of private wells, the country���s second-highest number. So far, the companies have not begun drilling, but Moore thinks it could be any day now. ���I don���t think they have to tell me anything,��� said Moore about her frustration over how little she knows about what, when, where, or how fracking will happen, and who���s responsible. ���You can���t discuss it with them. That���s scary to me. It���s like a big secret.��� And that���s just how the industry likes it. Energy companies have been drilling for natural gas for decades. But only in the past 10 years or so have they developed the technologies to conduct what is technically known as ���unconventional��� fracking, which involves not only treatments where huge quantities of water, sand, and chemicals are pumped into the well at high pressure (creating huge pools of toxic wastewater), but also drill bits that can bore horizontally so that more of the well can penetrate the target rock formation. So what looks like a regular hole in the ground can extend outward from that hole up to a radius of 1,000, 5,000 or even 10,000 feet. Some fracking critics have complained that, with horizontal drilling, companies may be extending beyond property lines where they have no rights to drill. Because who would be able to check and police them? All the drilling is happening more than a mile below the ground surface. In 2005, the Energy Policy Act pushed by then-Vice President Dick Cheney essentially exempted fracking operations from federal oversight under clean water laws, an exclusion commonly referred to as the ���Halliburton Loophole,��� in honor of Cheney���s former position as CEO of that oil and energy corporation. With the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency unable to regulate fracking, that role was left to each individual state, where the energy companies could wield even greater in���uence over state governors, legislators, and agencies. It is well documented that, in Pennsylvania for example, W W W. N A T I O N A L N U R S E S U N I T E D . O R G O C TO B E R 2 0 1 2