Potential dangers in drilling for gas
Ms. Howe Henneberg called eminent domain “evil words,” and she fears a pipeline running through her backyard if her neighbors sign natural gas drilling leases.
“It would be horrifying to me,” she said, adding she wants to buy the 13 acres adjacent to her 6-acre property.
Ms. Howe Henneberg was one of more than 300 residents from Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey who attended the Damascus Citizens for Sustainability event Saturday night that featured a narrated slide show by Theo Colburn, Ph.D., the co-author of “Our Stolen Future.”
Though Dr. Colburn spoke to the crowd via phone from Colorado, her presence filled the Delaware Youth Center, her comments at times eliciting gasps from the attendees. She spoke about natural gas drilling in her state and stressed the need for full disclosure from drilling companies.
During the fracturing process, when natural gas is forced from the ground, “they’re using a number of chemicals with long names that many of you wouldn’t recognize,” she said.
A recent study of natural gas production on the western slope of Colorado, Dr. Colburn said, found 215 products with 278 chemicals were used.
Of those chemicals, 93 percent produced adverse health effects, while information on the remaining 7 percent was “proprietary” and therefore not available, she said.
Some of the chemicals used can cause irreversible “endocrine disruptions” before a child is born, Dr. Colburn said.
She can also foresee similarities between drilling in her area and the Northeast.
Anticipating the effects of natural gas drilling and spreading awareness are goals of the Damascus Citizens, a grass-roots group that formed in February.
-This article notes the potential dangers in drilling for gas. Safety is not an option it is required. Yet, drilling gas is something that is a nationally propounded policy, as illustrated by our tax regulations.
