Moms Stand Up to Fracking

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Expert Opinion

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Written by Angie Nordstrum , with an introduction by Robyn O'Brien of Allergy Kids

We’ve all seen (or at least heard of) the movie “Erin Brockovich” in which a bold and fiercely determined mom takes on a chemical company for exposing a small town and the families and children that live there to toxic chemicals that have been linked to cancer. It’s Academy Award winning material.

And it’s happening again.

In a small town in Colorado, 600 yards from three elementary schools and a childcare center, the natural gas industry is about to drill wells and expose hundreds of school children to chemicals that have never been proven safe, for which there is no accountability when it comes to their safe disposal and for which there is no clarity on who would assume liability (and future medical bills) for the health of these children should they become ill.

It’s an unprecedented situation, because in the haste to drill, no regulations and no long-term human health studies have been conducted to assess the impact that these processes and the chemicals used in them might have on the health of children.

According to the Denver Post, “the American landscape is dotted with hundreds of thousands of new wells and thousands of drilling rigs, as the country scrambles to tap into this century’s gold rush for natural gas. Drilling companies have developed techniques to unlock these enormous reserves, and energy companies are clamoring to drill.

But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.”

Given that the American children have already earned the title “Generation Rx”, due to the rates of asthma, allergies, autism, ADHD, diabetes and the fact that cancer is now the leading cause of death by disease in children under the age of 15 (source: Centers for Disease Control), perhaps it is time that we stop and learn a little bit more.

Angie Nordstrum, a mother of a young child with multiple food allergies and asthma, sheds light on what is happening at her child’s school.

My son attends the new Red Hawk Elementary in Erie, Colorado. This state of the art green school is a LEED certified building which means that it is complete with geothermal heat system, super insulated building envelope, skylights and displacement ventilation. The mission of the school is to focus on math, science, technology and integration of the arts by fostering a sense of environmental responsibility by taking care of one’s self with healthy eating and exercise and reducing environmental waste. Students begin each school day outside.

The school also has a 1500 square foot garden space. Students and staff will be an integral part of the gardens, with beds for each grade level.

In the news recently, you may have heard of something called “fracking” or “hydraulic fracturing”. It is a drilling process used by the natural gas industry to extract natural gas from beneath the ground.

And there are health and safety concerns about it. Despite provisions in the Clean Air Act, there is something called the Halliburton Loophole that allows the gas companies to inject proprietary mixtures of methane, ethane, liquid condensate, and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the wells. Some of the VOCs that are used in the mixtures have a significant impact on health and include benzene, toluene, ethyl benzene and xylene. Health effects of exposure to these chemicals include neurological problems, birth defects, and cancer. Other symptoms may include bloody noses, asthma, GI distress, diarrhea, dizziness, migraines, nerve pain, neurological disorders and skin rashes.

These health risks pose a potential threat to children.

Yet despite these concerns, drilling is beginning on eight natural gas wells less than 600 yards from our school, Erie Elementary, Erie Middle School and Exploring Minds Childcare Center. Yes, three schools and a childcare center are about to be exposed to an unprecedented experiment in children’s health.

Will the school nurse will be seeing dozens of sick children in her office. What health issues will these students have in 5 years? In 10 years?

The companies will begin the drilling process in the next couple of weeks. It will be visible from my son’s classroom. The only access to the site will be from the road which runs right in front of the school. Let me repeat that, “The only access to the site will be from the road which runs right in front of the school” because while there is another road that is actually closer to the drilling site, this road cannot be used for drilling transportation because the chemical-carrying trucks are not allowed to cross railroad tracks on the course of their path.

At what point are children more valuable than railroad tracks? The trucks transporting the chemicals cannot cross the railroad tracks but they can transport toxic chemicals right in front of the entrance to our school?

Erie is an old coal mining town. There are parks and ball fields built on top of these mines for kids to enjoy all over our town. Our school garden sits on top of an old mine. We don’t want our children to be the canaries in the natural gas coal mine.

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To learn what you can do to protect yourself and your family and how to prevent the drilling of these wells near children’s schools, the following pages and resources provide information about:

The drilling planned for your community
The harm drilling can cause
Steps you can take to limit the dangers to yourself and your family
Resources in each state in which drilling is or is likely to occur.

Please visit:

Natural Resources Defense Council: Steps to Keep You and Your Family Safe from Fracking
Sign On: Request a Moratorium on Oil and Gas Drilling Near Schools in Colorado
“What You Need to Know About Natural Gas Production”
Gasland: The Movie
Blue Green Alliance: Chemicals in the Environment
Fracking Across the United States: Learn about “Fraccidents” and How to Protect Your Loved Ones

Photo courtesy Allergy Kids Foundation

Posted by Peter Bloch on 02/12/2012 at 03:51 PM

This is a comment in opposition to this article, so perhaps you won’t post it, but here goes:
One of the greatest threats to the health and well-being of people on this planet is global warming, and natural gas is a much less carbon-intensive source of energy than oil and especially coal.
One of the other benefits of recovering shale gas is that, in purchasing hydrocarbons from some of the awful regimes whom we are dependent in the west, we will be free to stop our current practice of keeping these nations afloat. A quick glance at almost any version of the “least free” countries in the world and you will see an alarming correlation with some of the biggest oil exporters. Many of these countries simply could not continue with their appalling internal oppression and corruption and highly destructive foreign policies without the confidence and security that they obtain through the ability to sell their resources abroad. Even refusing to purchase these resources from the worst of the regimes (for example, the EU has just decided to end all purchases of Iranian oil) means benefit to other authoritarian regimes (the Chinese will simply buy more Iranian oil, and at lower prices), intensified price pressure on other economies and a fear of really standing up to authoritarian and totalist regimes for fear of an oil crisis.
When the two greatest potentially modifiable threats to the health and happiness of humanity are global warming and dangerous regimes, shale gas, despite the risks, would seem to be the lesser evil. What we need to concentrate on is how to reduce these risks.

Posted by April Beach on 01/30/2012 at 02:58 PM

Thank you HCHW for the support and to Ruth R. for asking how you can help our school! Presently we are working against a plan for “compromise” and believe this is not enough. There should be no compromise when it comes to our kids. My own children have already presented toxic exposure symptoms. We lived next to a “pit” for years unknowingly and have developed more issues with the fracking of a well within 100s of feet from our home. With the fracking which has already taken place in our community, we will not compromise! Our mom-founded organization Erie Rising (www.erierising.com) is gaining momentum and is extremely appreciative of your support. Please follow us on FB, subscribe to our RSS feed, share our site with your friends (www.erierising.com), write letters to our governments and follow us on Twitter @erierising. As we move forward with actions, we will need your support to be successful!

Posted by Natalie. Ronin on 01/27/2012 at 05:02 PM

Good for you for speaking out! Fracking is a horrific process and there is a large group, 350.org that has helped organize actions against it, and the oil industry in general for endangering our children’s future. This week, we met on capital hill to call “foul play,” against our congress and the American Petroleum institute for interfering with clean energy growth- by way of 53 million dollars in campaign contributions. We did it in referee shirts! I encourage you to get out there and organize an action. We got the president to reject the keystone pipeline- its a fight worth fighting and it feels GREAT:)

Posted by Lisa Bracken on 01/27/2012 at 02:13 PM

Thank you, Healthy Child, for helping elevate awareness of this horrific and widespread threat facing American families and communities. I was in the film Gasland. My father was seen lighting West Divide Creek on fire, and I was the lady with the dead animals - still in my freezer. I have been working for nearly a decade to evolve the natural gas industry toward safe practices and accountability. The ongoing pillage of West Divide Creek, Colorado and the associated, unregulated impacts continue to be exposed at journeyoftheforsaken.com Ultimately, it is a surprise to many to discover the natural gas industry is exempted from so many federal laws enacted to safeguard public and environmental safety. Energy underlies all we do, and evolving it will require an educated, aligned and coordinated public to demand it. Even our democratic process has been compromised in the interest of creating greater demand for this dirty, polluting resource. Moms will be the force that changes status quo in securing a future for their children. Another resource to visit is foodandwaterwatch.org. Another tool, which I developed, to help all of us succeed is the field manual: “You And What Army How to Neutralize Conflict and Negotiate Justice”. youandwhatarmybook.com

Posted by Lisa on 01/27/2012 at 01:34 PM

There are also many concerns for the mining of the special sand that is used in the tracking process in the midwest for both environmental and health reasons and many areas are putting a moratorium on these mines until further studies can be done. My thoughts are with you and I wish everyone would see Gasland so they understood just how terrible the fracking of natural gas is.

Posted by Ruth R. on 01/27/2012 at 01:34 PM

What can we do to help prevent this from happening near this particular
school mentioned in this article?
Ruth

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