some of the ingredients used in the process. The River Reporter, a small paper serving the upper Delaware Valley asked The Endocrine Disruption Exchange (TEDX) to review the list and assess the possible health effects they may have. TEDX found that 16 of the 54 chemicals on the list have wide ranging effects on human health and the environment including birds, fish, and amphibians. Many of the chemicals are water-soluble and would move easily into surface or ground water if contamination occurred.

In New York the issue has raised particular concern because part of the Marcellus Shale lies underneath the city’s drinking water supply, not to mention the contiguous forests of the Catskill Mountains and many upstate counties. Aside from the chemicals used the building of roads, heavy trucktraffic, the installation of drill pads, and the massive amounts of water that must be diverted and then stored as waste water after the fracking has been completed also pose threats to the environment.

In February, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer and a number of environmental groups issued a call for a ban on drilling in the city’s upstate watershed. They cited numerous cases of contaminated drinking water and contaminated wells that are likely the result of natural gas drilling (though not necessarily from fracking itself).
In what was perhaps the most alarming case—detailed in an article in Newsweek—a woman in Durango, Colorado was literally soaked by a 130-gallon frac-fluid spill. She ended up in the intensive care unit with a swollen liver, fluid in her lungs, and erratic blood