Inflammable tap water, cancer threats and earthquakes: probably coming soon, near you . By Stacy Hebert @ http://maxkeiser.com/ May 9, 2011

Inflammable tap water, cancer threats and earthquakes: probably coming soon, near you .
By Stacy Hebert @ http://maxkeiser.com/ May 9, 2011

“Read the story of Mayor Tillman. He is surrounded by shriekers shrieking that they require a particular form of energy at any cost and that the immediate small fiat profits that Halliburton allegedly provides them for access to that natural gas beneath their property is worth a few nosebleeds in their children. Apply this shrieking to the many markets you see around you and what so many are willing to destroy for a few fake profits.

* Frack & ruin: the rise of hydraulic fracturing

Fracking has been most vigorously criticized for the damage caused by its waste water, which contains carcinogens such as benzene and radioactive elements such as radium. Some of these chemicals are in the secret cocktail of liquids injected in the well; others come up naturally from underground. These toxins have regularly polluted rivers, streams and lakes. Some are endocrine disruptors, and have been scientifically shown to stunt growth and human reproductive capacity.

The damage spreads when contaminated water enters the food chain. A confidential study commissioned by the American Petroleum Industry and leaked to The New York Times, concluded that radium in drilling waste water dumped off the Louisiana coast posed “significant risks” of cancer for people who ate fish from the Gulf of Mexico.

Air pollution caused by natural-gas drilling has become a real problem. In Wyoming, fumes containing benzene and toluene spewed out by its 27,000 wells, most of them fracked in the past five years, led to the state failing its federal requirements for air quality.

Texas has seen some of the worst pollution. The town of Dish, which has 362 residents and 60 gas wells, saw the departure of its mayor, Calvin Tillman, who was not willing to place his family’s health in the hands of the gas companies smashing up the Barnett Shale beneath their home. A sickening smell of gas hung in the town, and, when the gas companies denied responsibility, Tillman commissioned an independent air quality test, at a cost of 15 per cent of the town’s annual budget of $70,000.

The resulting report showed the air contained the carcinogen benzene at levels 55 times higher than even the relaxed Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) allowed. Neurotoxicants such as xylene and carbon disulphide, as well as the blood poison naphthalene, were also found at levels up to 384 times higher than levels deemed safe. The final straw was when both of Tillman’s sons began suffering from acute nosebleeds. “My five-year-old woke up with blood all over his hands, blood on the walls – our house looked somewhat like a murder scene.” Similar reports of severe nosebleeds, respiratory problems and rashes have been made across the country.”