The post Fracking Fluid For Dinner? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The post Fracking Fluid For Dinner? first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The program is a good deal for oil companies, which view the [fracking]  water as an expensive nuisance. And it’s a bargain for the water districts. [The] cooperative pays Chevron about $30 an acre-foot for the wastewater, about half of open-market rates.

You read that right. Farmers don’t even get this “expensive nuisance” wastewater for free—they have to buy it, at half the price of non-contaminated water!
California Assemblyman Mike Gatto has introduced legislation that would require a label for foods grown with recycled fracking fluid. The proposed label would read, “Produced using recycled or treated oil-field wastewater.”
We won’t hold our breath waiting for this bill to pass. But even if it does pass, such a labeling law would only affect products sold in-state. But California grows an astounding percentage of America’s total produce: 99% of artichokes, 99% of walnuts, 97% of kiwis, 97% of plums, 95% of celery, 95% of garlic, 90% of broccoli, 89% of cauliflower, 71% of spinach, and 69% of carrots. Put another way, California produces nearly half of all US-grown fruits, nuts, and vegetables.
This raises the question: how will those of us outside of California know if the produce we’re buying—even if it’s labeled “organic”—was grown with water laced with or at least somewhat contaminated with industrial-strength solvents? As with GMOs, consumers have a right to basic information about their food and the right to make informed decisions about what to put into their bodies—but currently we have no way of knowing if our produce from California was grown with this toxic water.
Action Alert! Write to your state representatives and urge them to ban the use of fracking water on crops. Please send your message immediately.

Additional Action Alert for California Residents! Write to your state legislators and urge them to support Assemblyman Gatto’s legislation. Please send your message immediately.

 
 

 

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The fight isn’t over yet. Some states want to ban filming of factory farm abuses—and fracking operations as well! Action Alerts!

• In North Carolina, SB 648 targets “fraud” in job applications (i.e., undercover journalists who pose as employees), and imposes up to $50,000 in fines. The bill would make it mandatory to turn any recording over to authorities within twenty-four hours, and bans photography at any place of employment! It should be noted that North Carolina is no stranger to animal cruelty. In 2011, a two-week investigation into a Butterball turkey farm revealed major animal abuses. Police raided the facility and charged five workers with criminal animal cruelty. A state Department of Agriculture official was convicted of obstruction of justice in the case.
• In Pennsylvania, HB 683 would ban the recording of agricultural operations, posting any such recording on the Internet or sending it via any other medium, obtaining access to an agricultural operation under false pretenses, obtaining employment with the intention of recording agricultural operations, or trespassing on such operations.

Especially disturbing is the fact that the Pennsylvania bill, if the language is interpreted broadly, could prevent filming of fracking operations. Most fracking—that is, hydraulic fracturing, a method of natural gas extraction employed in deep natural gas well drilling—occurs on leased farmland. According to the language of the bill, anything that takes place on that land would be similarly protected.
This broad interpretation may not be far-fetched. Pennsylvania does a great deal of fracking, and former governor Ed Rendell now works as a consultant to a private equity firm that is heavily invested in the natural gas industry.
As we’ve noted previously, fracking causes toxic chemicals to be released into the air and water, causing widespread pollution. Scientists have identified volatile organic compounds (VOCs) such as benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, which even in low levels can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness, and in high concentrations can cause leukemia and death. The water is also often laden with barium, which is found in underground ore deposits and can cause high blood pressure, breathing difficulties, muscle weakness, swelling of the brain, and kidney damage; radium, a naturally occurring radioactive (and carcinogenic) substance; and strontium, which is necessary in trace amounts for bone development, but in too large amounts can disrupt it and cause cancer.
Unfortunately, in previous legislative sessions, Ag-Gag bills became law in Iowa, Missouri, and Utah. In Utah, the first Ag-Gag charges have already been brought against a whistleblower, though prosecutors decided to drop the charges—this time. With this new law on the books, it will almost certainly be enforced in the future.
As we noted in February, CAFOs, or Confined Animal Feeding Operations, are responsible for foodborne illnesses such as salmonella and listeria; are notorious for their use of antibiotics for nontherapeutic uses, and for exacerbating the “superbug” problem in which organisms become increasingly resistant to antibiotics; and ruin rural economies. In addition, there is the inhumane treatment of the animals themselves. Ag-Gag laws prevent consumers from making truly informed choices about what they eat.
Action Alert! If you live in North Carolina or Pennsylvania, please contact your legislators immediately and urge them to vote NO on these dangerous Ag-Gag bills!
North Carolina Action Alert!
Pennsylvania Action Alert!

The post Ag-Gag Bills: Proof Your Activism Brings Results! first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

• benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene, which in low levels can cause drowsiness, dizziness, rapid heart rate, headaches, tremors, confusion, and unconsciousness, and in high concentrations can cause leukemia and death;
• barium, which is found in underground ore deposits and can cause high blood pressure, breathing difficulties, muscle weakness, swelling of the brain, and kidney damage;
• radium, a naturally occurring radioactive (and carcinogenic) substance; and
• strontium, which is necessary in trace amounts for bone development, but in too large amounts can disrupt it and cause cancer.

Then there’s the question of what to do with the contaminated water. Standard procedure is to use disposal wells drilled deep into the earth; each well uses about 4.5 million gallons of chemical-laced water. Many experts believe that the use of these disposal wells is creating earthquakes—and data from Midwest shows that it is happening more often than originally thought. A US Geological Survey report found that the frequency of earthquakes started rising in 2001 across a broad swath of the country between Alabama and Montana. In 2009, there were 50 earthquakes greater than magnitude-3.0, then 87 quakes in 2010. The 134 earthquakes in the zone last year is a sixfold increase over 20th century levels.
So what if your physician believes you may be ill from fracking chemicals, but needs to know which ones to make sure your diagnosis and treatment are correct? A Pennsylvania law signed earlier this year allows physicians to access information about the proprietary chemicals being used (which are protected by trade secrets) so they can help their patients who are sick from the chemicals. But here’s the catch: they have to sign a confidentiality agreement that they won’t tell anyone else—not you their patients, and not even other doctors—what’s in those formulas. It’s being called the “doctor gag rule.”
The Pennsylvania gag rule is strikingly similar to a law in Colorado—which also influenced laws in Texas and Ohio. In Colorado there was near silence on the issue. The Texas Medical Association actually endorsed the doctor gag rule!
Happily, such quiet compliance at the expense of citizens’ health doesn’t have to be the norm in other states. A new bill has been introduced in Pennsylvania that would remove the gag rule. HB 2415 allows the health professional to disclose information on the chemicals to anyone she or he determines is necessary for the patient’s diagnosis or treatment—whether that be another health professional, the patient, or a public health official.
The Pennsylvania bill is currently in the state’s Environmental Resources and Energy Committee. If you are a Pennsylvania resident, contact your legislators immediately and voice your support for HB 2415. Restore your doctor’s freedom of speech and your right to know about what is making you sick! Please take action today!

The post Doctors Fighting Gag Rule in Pennsylvania first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

Drinking water that catches fire? Radioactive rainwater? You got the Senate to reintroduce the FRAC Act to close the Halliburton Loophole—now help it become law! Make the drilling companies accountable—an Action Alert.

EPA scientists working on the agency’s national hydrofracking study have also emphasized that sewage treatment plants are not, technically speaking, treating the waste.

For example, when one agency scientist wrote in a draft plan for the national study that wastewater could be “discharged to surface water after treatment to remove contaminants,” another scientist corrected the statement in the margin.

Using the federal definition of treatment, the second scientist wrote, “we really don’t fully treat the waste.”

On a lighter note, you may enjoy the Fracking Song, created by the New York University Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute’s Studio 20.

Please contact your senators today and ask them to pass the FRAC Act, and close the Halliburton Loophole!

The post You Asked Congress for Help on Fracking, and They Heard You! first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

“I live in an area where producers have been fracturing oil and gas wells for close to a century. I spent my career in oil transportation and I have never heard of the kinds of problems you suggest are arising in Pennsylvania. Something is amiss—either the wells are drilled and serviced with inferior materials or regulations surrounding wastewater disposal are too lax or ??? or ???. I have a hard time believing the fracking itself is the problem since it’s a refinement of a very old technology.”

The old method of natural gas extraction was simply to dig a hole straight down into trapped natural gas, which sits in a kind of natural reservoir, and then capture that gas as it takes the path of least resistance up to the surface. The modern method of hydraulic fracking is radically different. New drilling technology allows a hole to be dug straight down and then be turned sideways and extended in multiple directions horizontally. Here is a diagram:

The holes are then pumped full of water, sand, and chemicals at very high pressure. This literally splits the rocks open to capture natural gas that was stuck inside them.
The concrete and steel well linings used in hydraulic fracking frequently rupture under the violence of this mining method, and the 2005 Halliburton exemption exempts these wells and sites from the Clean Water Act and other regulatory laws.
Another reader writes,

“I get email from ANH and commonly sign petitions. You have a new article about fracking that talks about strontium causes cancer and bone problems. It’s actually the opposite, you need to rewrite this. You have bad information, and I won’t sign because of bad information on the mineral strontium. I know from studies I’ve read it increases bone density better than any drugs out there, safer, natural, it depends on the type of strontium. Please rewrite the article and letter and I’ll think about signing after its been rewritten.”

A third writes,

“Four landmark studies have been conducted in the last five years, uncovering amazing increases in bone mineral density with Strontium supplementation. Strontium is a common element which is naturally found in your bones. Studies show supplementation with strontium in its various forms is well tolerated and completely safe. Strontium lies directly below calcium on the periodic table of elements and that makes calcium, strontium and magnesium all in the same chemical family. They are all naturally occurring metals found in the soil, in foods, and in your body. As an alkaline earth element, strontium is similar to calcium in its absorption in the gut, incorporation in bone, and elimination from the body through the kidneys.

“Strontium is naturally present in trace amounts with around 100 micrograms in every gram of bone, so when you supplement with strontium you are simply making more of this element available for incorporation into your bone. Several forms of strontium salt have been used in clinical studies and each strontium salt has had positive results for bone, so it appears that strontium is the active component, and not the carbonate, ranelate, lactate, or citrate part the strontium is attached to. Strontium inhibits bone resorption while simultaneously stimulating bone growth, an exciting double benefit. No other natural substance or drug is known to provide this dual effect.

“Strontium appears to help reduce dental caries according to a ten-year study sponsored by the US Navy, where residents of a small town had unusually high levels of strontium in the municipal water supply.”

First, we must apologize because a phrase was inadvertently dropped during the editing process. We have revised both the main article and the Action Alert to say that “strontium…is necessary in trace amounts for bone development, but in too large amounts can disrupt it and cause cancer.”
The problem is the difference between strontium supplementation, and the low levels of naturally occurring strontium that we might be generally exposed to, and the tremendously high levels of strontium released by the fracking process. Just think of the myriad substances that are quite beneficial when taken in small amounts—belladonna springs quickly to mind—but which will kill you when taken in sufficient quantities.
A study published in the Journal of Petroleum Technology focusing on the concentrations of selected important contaminants in Pennsylvania from Marcellus Shale flowback water found that approximately 3,280 mg/L of strontium—or 16,737 pounds—are released every day into the Monongahela River. It is in those high concentrations that strontium poses a risk of bone cancer, cancer of the soft tissue near the bone, and leukemia.
Interestingly, a radioactive form of the mineral, strontium-89, is being administered along with chemotherapy drugs and is being studied in the treatment of bone pain caused by some types of cancer, whereas strontium-90 may actually cause bone cancer.
Lenntech, which does water treatment for many different industries, says this about strontium: “Strontium compounds that are water-insoluble can become water-soluble, as a result of chemical reactions. The water-soluble compounds are a greater threat to human health than the water-insoluble ones. Therefore, water-soluble forms of strontium have the opportunity to pollute drinking water. Fortunately the concentrations in drinking water are usually quite low….When strontium uptake is extremely high, it can cause disruption of bone development. But this effect can only occur when strontium uptake is in the thousands of ppm range.”
You may be interested to learn about a new book called Your Bones: How You Can Prevent Osteoporosis and Have Strong Bones for Life—Naturally. It’s by Lara Pizzorno, managing editor for Longevity Medicine Review and senior medical editor for SaluGenecists, Inc., and occasional ANH-USA contributor Jonathan Wright, MD. One of the book’s big revelations is that the medicines prescribed to prevent osteoporosis should be your last choice for healthy bones: not only do these drugs have terrible side effects, they also don’t build healthy, new bone—instead, they cause retention of old, brittle bone and can lead to jaw death.
Your Bones will be available on May 1 from Praktikos Books. Feel free to contact them and reserve an advance copy.

The post More About Fracking—and Especially Strontium and Bone Health first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.

The post A Huge Fracking Mess first appeared on Alliance for Natural Health USA - Protecting Natural Health.