Dirty Water Destroys People

Dirty Water Destroys People.
Groundwater and integument water samples infatuated near fracking operations in Colorado contained chemicals that can disrupt male and female hormones, researchers say. These chemicals, which are in use in the fracking process, also were present in samples taken from the Colorado River, which serves as the drainage basin for the region, according to the study, which was published online Dec 16, 2013 in the scrapbook Endocrinology. "More than 700 chemicals are employed in the fracking process, and many of them churn hormone function," study co-author Susan Nagel, an assistant professor at the University of Missouri School of Medicine, said in a periodical news release.

And "With fracking on the rise, populations may experience greater health risks from increased endocrine-disrupting chemical exposure". Exposure to these chemicals can inflate cancer risk and hamper reproduction by decreasing female fertility and the quality and total of sperm, the researchers said. Hydraulic fracturing, also called fracking, is a controversial process that involves pumping water, sand and chemicals absorbed underground at high pressure.

The purpose is to crackle open hydrocarbon-rich shale and extract natural gas. Previous studies have raised concerns that such drilling techniques could come to contamination of drinking water. The oil and gas industries strongly disputed this reborn study, noting that the researchers took their samples from fracking sites where random spills had occurred. Steve Everley, a spokesman for industry group Energy in Depth, also disputed claims in the inspection that fracking is exempt from the federal Safe Drinking Water Act and the Clean Water Act.

He said the researchers grossly overestimated the army of chemicals reach-me-down in the process. "Activists promote a lot of bad science and shoddy research, but this study - if you can even requirement it that - may be the worst yet. From falsely characterizing the US regulatory environment to tired out making stuff up about the additives used in hydraulic fracturing, it's hard to see how delving like this is helpful. Unless, of course, you're trying to use the media to help you scare the public".

In conducting the study, the researchers took a two-pronged approach. First, Nagel and her colleagues contrived 12 fracking chemicals in the laboratory to influence whether they could disrupt male or female hormone function. They purchased the chemicals from a outfit company and then exposed human cell cultures to the chemicals. The researchers observed the reply of receptors for male hormones (androgens) such as testosterone and the female hormone estrogen.

So "We found that 11 of those 12 (chemicals) interfere either the estrogen or the androgen receptor," Nagel said in an interview. The researchers then went out into the field, taking mineral water samples from Garfield County, Colo, an enclosure with more than 10000 active wells. "We went to five sites that have experienced some gentle of accident or spill related to natural gas fracking, and measured surface and groundwater.

We also premeditated groundwater at two sites that had very little natural gas drilling and had no drilling". The irrigate samples from sites with known spills contained moderate to high levels of hormone-disrupting chemicals compared to samples charmed from sites located away from fracking, the researchers found. They also found modest levels of the chemicals in samples taken from the Colorado River.

So "If you count up all the types of activity, our sites had on so so double the activity relative to our control sites. Nagel said she hopes this scrutinize raises a red flag for people who live near fracking operations. "We found more endocrine-disrupting work in the water close to drilling locations that had experienced spills than at comparison sites," she said in the announcement release. "This could raise the risk of reproductive, metabolic, neurological and other diseases, especially in children who are exposed to endocrine-disrupting chemicals" buy osteodol on line. Although the sanctum found a potential risk of hormonal disruption from living near fracking operations, it did not certify a cause-and-effect relationship.