Recent comments

The impact of fracking on women's health and well being extends beyond the physical. Many women (and men and children) living in frack-lands in Pennsylvania and other states, and those in threatened New York and threatened countries (of which there are many) are experiencing extreme stress, indeed trauma. The mental and emotional impacts are severe. In some cases there's guilt for having signed a lease, and now knowing the poisons in the air, water, and croplands will likely harm one's children. Knowing that the illnesses caused by these toxins may not manifest for months, years, or even decades, adds an incredible strain, especially because we know we can never trace these illnesses back to the fracking companies -- who will deny responsibility in any case and who may well have changed their name or gone through a merger or be otherwise untraceable. In cases where fracking is occurring already, the community is often fractured (fracked). Some members of the community welcome it for the perceived job growth and economic prosperity (although it is inevitably a boom that will bust). Others recognize the environmental, health, and quality-of-life degradation. Sometimes families are divided over the issue, and some families fracture. A very well researched and written story in No Frack Almanac's most recent issue delves into the subject of rent spikes and foreclosures leading to homelessness in fracked Pennsylvania. When one's water is poisoned, one's home loses all value, so many people are stuck in untenable situations, with nowhere to turn. I know of at least one family where the teen-aged children decided to leave home and move in with relatives in other states, to avoid the rashes, headaches, and respiratory illnesses they got from living at home near shale-gas fracking. Beyond this, the stress and sleeplessness among many antifracktivists is taking a toll. I know dozens of dedicated people who are working night and day to protect their families, communities, and future -- to the detriment of their own health and livelihoods. They know they are literally fighting for their lives and feel they have no choice. Now if only there were tens of thousands more of them -- the stress level of each would lighten.