At CCAN, we’re fighting to keep fracking wells out of our communities — and to stop new pipelines, compressor stations, and export facilities that drive demand for new fracking — because we know that this extreme form of fossil fuel extraction is a disaster for our climate.
But that’s certainly not the only reason we fight fracking. A comprehensive review of scientific studies released this fall underlines how fracking and its associated infrastructure also pose an immediate threat to our health.
In October, Concerned Health Professionals of New York and Physicians for Social Responsibility teamed up to release a compendium and associated report summarizing more than 500 peer-reviewed scientific studies, along with other important medical, government and media findings on fracking available through July 31, 2015. The compendium, now in its third edition, finds overwhelming evidence that fracking poses poses significant and unavoidable risks to public health, air and water quality, birth and infant health, worker safety, the environment, our climate, and more.
I’d sum up the overarching conclusion of the report as follows: Keeping fracking out of our communities is the only proven way to protect our families, children, and workers from harm. The report’s authors put it in slightly more technical terms:

Emerging data from a rapidly expanding body of evidence continue to reveal a plethora of recurring problems and harms that cannot be averted or cannot be sufficiently averted through regulatory frameworks. In the words of esteemed pediatrician Jerome Paulson, MD, there is ‘no evidence that…fracking can operate without risks to human health. … Any claims of safety are based on wishful thinking.’

This conclusion — that regulations are simply not capable of preventing harm — is one that we must keep repeating in Maryland. We won a huge, grassroots-powered victory this spring, when Governor Larry Hogan allowed a two-year fracking moratorium to become law (without his signature). But that same legislation, which prevents any drilling activity through October 2017, also requires Governor Hogan’s administration to finalize regulations for fracking by October 2016. Those regulations would go into effect when the moratorium lifts in October 2017.
Every passing study — like the Johns Hopkins study released this October showing a 40 percent increase in risk of preterm birth among mothers living near active fracking sites in Pennsylvania — underlines why we can’t let up now. As health professionals conclude that regulations are simply not capable of preventing harm, the evidence of harm just keeps growing. We have a hard deadline of October 2017 to ensure regulations stay out of play and that fracking stays out of Maryland.
That’s why CCAN has been hard at work this summer and fall building the movement we need to keep fracking out of Maryland permanently. That’s why, ultimately, Governor Hogan and our state lawmakers must follow the lead of Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York and put an outright ban on fracking. And why local elected leaders in counties and cities that sit atop known gas basins, from Garrett to Prince George’s, can and should take their own action and pass ordinances to keep fracking out.
As Governor Hogan’s administration weighs the fracking regulations due in October 2016, we know that the Governor himself was informed of the latest research findings. Concerned Health Professionals of Maryland and Chesapeake Physicians for Social Responsibility sent a letter to Governor Hogan summarizing the alarming evidence of harm and calling on him to lead Maryland down a different, safer path:

We cannot sit by silently while Maryland residents are forced to become subjects in a large-scale public health experiment, as has happened in other states. You are uniquely positioned to lead Maryland away from this dangerous and unethical practice and to accelerate the transition to a renewable-energy based economy.

At CCAN, we couldn’t have said it better. Our health and our climate depend on keeping fracking out while speeding up our transition to truly clean energy resources like wind and solar. You can get involved with CCAN on both fronts throughout this fall and winter. We’re gearing up to pass legislation in 2016 to significantly expand Maryland’s renewable electricity standard. By requiring that 25 percent of our electricity come from clean sources by 2020, we can significantly improve Maryland’s air quality while preventing 50 to 110 premature deaths per year and increasing regional economic growth by $458 million to $1 billion annually due to better health outcomes.
Click here to learn how you can help protect our health from fracking. Click here to learn how you can help improve our health with clean energy!