Drilling Won't Save the Family Farm

A couple years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Carol French, a dairy farmer in Bradford County, PA. She came to the town of Caroline, NY to share some of her experiences of living and farming in a drilling area. Since then I have heard her speak a couple more times. Since 2011 she’s seen health impacts to her cows and her family from water contaminated by nearby drilling activity. The photo is of rashes her cows have been suffering. That is only one of the health impacts she's seeing on her farm.

A couple days ago she posted a plea for New Yorkers. Here is a condensed version of her comments (full comments at Raging Chicken):

If I hear one more New York farmer or any Farmer tell me that they want Natural Gas drilling in their state or they signed a gas lease to “SAVE their FAMILY FARM” I will probably lose it!

Today I thought it’s going to be a good day. We didn’t lose power (from the big snowstorm). We made our way to the barn to only find that another cow aborts her calf. She was eight months into her pregnancy. Before I was done milking my cows, cow number three starts to abort her calf. She too is eight months into her pregnancy. In nine days we have had three cows lose their calves.

For people not familiar with farming I will explain the dilemma. A cow should be “dry” for two months before giving birth. A cow that aborts during this time of her pregnancy doesn’t “come into” her milk real well. This Farmer counts on the replacement calves to continue farming the same number of cows. I have heard from other farmers with “changed” water having similar problems. If this is true, the money from the lease, royalties, and signing other agreements will NOT offset the cost of:  1. Losing your health. 2. Losing your family business, 3. Losing the value of your property. With this stripped from you, what will you have?

A farmer claiming that this natural gas extraction is going to save the farm is sadly mistaken. Should that farmer count on this money and lose everything that I had mentioned … he definitely will lose his farm to the gas industry without a dime in his pocket!

Carol appreciates our concern – but what she really wants is us, her neighbors in NY, to stand up with her. She has written to her state agencies, DEP, state Dept. of Agriculture, and a host of other people, to no avail.

In the next few days the Governor of NY and state environmental regulators will likely determine whether and how to allow high volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing. This is the time, Carol says, for New Yorkers to stand up and speak.

Help Pennsylvania fight against Hydro- Fracturing and what it has done to its people living in Pennsylvania. Please remember, what my neighbor agrees to do on his property will affect me, just like what Pennsylvania will do in its state will affect New York, West Virginia, and Ohio. All of these states have become Pennsylvania’s drilling waste dumping grounds for the gas industry.

Fracking Affects Animal Health

photo by Frank Finan

Farmers from Colorado to Louisiana to Pennsylvania have seen their livestock sickened or killed from exposure to drilling fluids, muds and additives. Emissions from well sites, processing facilities and flaring also contribute to health impacts. Animals that don’t die outright may lose weight, show decreased fertility, or experience an increased number of stillbirths, abortions, and birth defects. 

Industrialized gas drilling has turned rural communities into “de facto laboratories for the study of environmental toxicology,” say veterinarian/researchers Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald. Farmers – and their animals – are not just exposed to drilling substances; they’re also exposed to the naturally occurring metals, volatile organics and radioactive compounds that are brought back to the surface during the drilling process.

Last year the team documented 24 cases of animal and human health problems with potential links to gas drilling. They visited farms, interviewed farmers and veterinarians, obtained water, soil and air testing results and results from human and animal lab tests.

Only two cases of the cases resulted from direct exposure to hydraulic fracturing fluid; most of the exposures were due to consumption of contaminated water from wells, springs, ponds or creeks. While some cases were due to accidents or negligence, for the most part exposures were a consequence of “normal” drilling operations.

The most common symptoms Bamberger and Oswald found were associated with reproduction: cows had trouble breeding and experienced a higher incidence of stillbirths. Of the seven cattle farms studied closely, 50 percent of the herd, on average, either died or failed to breed.

They lucked out when two beef farms provided natural “controls” – an opportunity to compare exposed cattle with their cohorts who were not exposed. In one case 140 cattle were exposed to wastewater that leaked from an impoundment; 70 died and the survivors suffered a high incidence of stillborn and stunted calves. The remainder of the herd – 60 head pastured with no access to the wastewater – experienced no health problems.

In addition to livestock, Bamberger and Oswald documented health impacts for farm dogs, cats, horses, poultry and llamas. In some cases, dogs and cats drank from puddles left when drilling waste fluid was sprayed to reduce dust on roads. Those companion animals experienced reproductive problems. They also suffered from seizures and other neurological problems, gastrointestinal symptoms, and developed skin rashes or lost feathers and hair.

It’s not just the animals that pay the price. Carol and Don Johnson, who raise beef cattle on their Tioga County (PA) farm, have a well drilled on their property. Two years ago, flowback fluid leaked from an impoundment pit leaked onto a pasture where the Johnson grazed their cattle. In response, the PA Department of Agriculture quarantined 28 head, including 16 cows, four heifers and eight calves. Adult animals were held from the food chain for 6 months and calves exposed in utero were held from the food chain for 8 months. But the exposed calves were quarantined for two years – a real loss of income for the Johnsons. Then, last spring they suffered additional losses: eight of 11 calves born to previously quarantined cows died at birth.  At $500 to $600 a head this represents a significant financial loss, and the Johnsons have yet to collect any royalties from the well.

Here's a video from Bamberger and Oswald's recent talk in Endicott, NY (filmed by Vera Scroggins)

Canadian Farmers Call for a Fracking Moratorium

a NY farmer preparing field for beans.

Yesterday the National Farmers Union in Canada called for a moratorium against fracking. Jan Slomp, a dairy farmer and coordinator for the NFU in Alberta says that many farmers in her area have either experienced problems with their water wells or have neighbors whose wells have been affected by drilling.

“We are in the heart of Alberta’s oil and gas country where our ability to produce good, wholesome food is at risk of being compromised by the widespread, virtually unregulated use of this dangerous process,” Slomp told the press.

Unfortunately, she said, “not many stories of contaminated water are made public because the oil and gas companies usually force farmers to sign confidentiality agreements in return for replacement of their water wells.”

Slomp also said that the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers have acknowledged that problems exist with fracking, and have released some suggestions to prevent further problems. “However, these voluntary guidelines are no substitute for strong regulations enforced by an impartial government body,” she said.

Farmers Need Haliburton Loophole Too

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction. Today EPA sent out a press release reporting that a PA dairy farmer has been ordered to provide drinking water to his neighbors. Seems he contaminated their well water.

According to David Sternberg at the EPA, the order requires the dairy farmer to provide an alternative source of drinking water to the owners of the contaminated well within 10 days of the effective date of the agency’s order. The order also requires the farmer to pay for sampling of the contaminated well, and to develop an effective plan to manage his dairy operation’s process wastewater, and manure.  The dairy farmer has said he intends to comply with the order.

Back in November an EPA inspector determined that the farm was not taking adequate measures for managing manure. Their manure management allowed contaminants such as fecal coliform bacteria, including E. coli, and ammonia to infiltrate underground sources of drinking water through sinkholes on the farm property.

If not managed properly, notes EPA,  animal feeding operations can be sources of contaminants such as fecal coliform bacteria, nitrate, and ammonia.  These contaminants can endanger human health, harm local water quality, and may also cause detrimental effects to the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

I’m not going to defend sloppy manure management, but you’ve got to wonder: how can Cabot get away without providing a permanent source of water to those 18 families in Dimock, PA? How come Anschutz isn’t building a pipeline for the folks in Horseheads, NY? Where’s the frackin’ justice?

You can read the EPA release here: http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/81ACDFD762C873E7852578D20061B987

Fracking and Farming Don't Mix

Shell wants to frack South Africa and that has two farmers concerned – concerned enough to fly to the Marcellus drilling region and check out how things are going here. Doug Stern and Lukie Strydom want to learn everything they can about the impacts of highly industrialized drilling on farms and communities. When they return home they’ll report back to local governments and farming associations.

Landowners in South Africa do not own the rights to minerals beneath them; those are reserved for the country as a whole. So the first time people heard about potential drilling in the Karoo was this January. Nobody knew what fracking was – not only was there a lack of information about unconventional drilling, but there was a lack of transparency in the process.

Doug Stern, SA rancher

Shell Oil applied for licenses to develop wells on 90,000 square kilometers (34,750 sq. miles), and promised to conduct environmental studies. But given the water-intensive drilling process and the extremely arid environment – annual rainfall can be as low as 8 inches in some parts – the South African government placed a moratorium on permits.

Doug Stern has been farming his bit of the Karoo for the past 35 years. His spread encompasses about 16,000 acres on which he grazes 3,000 sheep and 600 head of cattle. He also cultivates – and irrigates – about 160 acres of pasture and forage crops. Right now, he said, South Africa is self-sufficient with respect to raising food for the people. But what will happen once drill rigs move onto the farms – especially in this arid region?

Although Shell has promised they won’t contaminate the soil or water, Stern is concerned about pollution. Even without pollution he feels the drilling doesn’t make sense when water is such a scarce commodity. He fears farmers and ranchers will suffer.

Another big concern is drilling traffic. After visiting Pennsylvania, Stern doesn’t think the Karoo roads are suited to the number of trucks required for shale gas drilling. “Our roads aren’t capped (no stone and oil or asphalt. They’re just dirt.” Dust would settle on the vegetation that his livestock grazes on. They won’t want to eat, he said, and that would translate into lost production.

Lukie Strydom (on left)

Farmers in South Africa view themselves as custodians of the land. “But this drilling,” Stern said, “has no respect for the long term impacts on the productivity of the land.”

Lukie Strydom says he’s taking home a long list of lessons. Topping the list: don’t rush into it. “If the drillers can get the casings done right, maybe the process will be safer,” he said. Second: don’t allow the companies to drill until the people have all the information they need.

Most importantly, though, “We must formulate a strategy,” Strydom said. When they get back to the Karoo, he and Stern hope to get farmers and representatives from local and regional governments and non-government organizations to discuss how to move forward for the good of all.

Another Earth Day, Another Blowout

Last year it was a BP rig in the Gulf of Mexico. This year it was a Chesapeake well in Bradford County, PA. April 20 is becoming a dangerous time for people living in the drill zone; let's hope it doesn't become an annual tradition.

photo by Frank Finan

Late Tuesday night a well near Canton, PA blew out during a fracking operation. Thousands of gallons of frack fluid poured out of the well, across a farmer's field and into Towanda Creek, which eventually spills into the Susquehanna River. The PA Department of Environmental Protection wasn't notified until the wee hours of Wednesday morning (April 20) and no one bothered to notify the cattle - or the farmer - until later in the day, though a crew did put up some barbed-wire fence in a hurry. Still, there's no telling cattle to stay away from the salty toxic waste....

Farming in the drill zone is tough. Just ask Carol French and Carolyn Knapp, two Bradford County dairy farmers who recently traveled to Brooktondale to talk about the rural impacts of industrialized drilling. One farmer had to sell his cattle after drillers sited a well behind the barn, cutting off access to his fields. His return on the drilling investment: $400/month in royalties and contaminated water.

Then there's the matter of forking over a few more pennies per hundredweight so the milk haulers won't bail out to drive trucks for the gas companies. And it's not just PA - NY dairy farmers are being hit by the added expense as well. And sawdust .... French says that with drillers buying up all the local supplies of sawdust (they mix it with drill cuttings before sending them to a landfill) she's resorted to grinding feed for bedding.

"Industrialized drilling affects everything," Knapp said.The shale shale play is huge and, gas companies point out, they expect to be producing gas for the next 30 to 50 years. Given the impacts on agriculture, both women wonder how long they can keep on farming.

"Not a day goes by that we don't discuss when we'll have to leave the farm," Knapp said.