Standing Up for Fracking Bans with Science and a Commitment to Public Health
By Carmi Orenstein, MPH
Editor, the Networker and Program Director, Concerned Health Professionals of New York
Even before this current era’s avalanche of attempts at deregulation, the sparse network of protective policies relating to fracking —including the best protection, bans—was not nearly as solid as we know is necessary. In the United States, we have statewide bans in Vermont, New York, Maryland, and Washington, plus a 5-year moratorium in Oregon that expired at the beginning of this year (there are currently no known plans for fracking in Oregon). California ruled to end the issuing of new permits as of October last year. Many counties in California banned fracking prior to that ruling, and around the country there are a handful of other municipal or regional bans (though some of them have been reversed). Some states with extensive fracking activity, including Colorado and Pennsylvania, require minimum “setback distances” of fracking wells from homes and schools, policies that do not have an exact science to support them, but for which communities in these states have worked, with the goal of reducing at least some of the harm.
We also have a ban in the Delaware River Basin, established in February 2021 following a nearly eleven-year moratorium, by the Delaware River Basin Commission (DRBC). The DRBC is a regional body which includes the governors of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, as well as a representative of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
Our program, Concerned Health Professionals of New York (CHPNY), worked to ensure that scientific and public health principles informed the decision-making processes linked to many of the bans named above, and we continue to provide evidence demonstrating the need for protective measures everywhere we can. Currently, we’re responding to a potential new challenge to the permanent ban on fracking in the Delaware River Basin.
CHPNY co-founder and active member Dr. Larysa Dyrszka with an early edition of the fracking science Compendium in 2018, used as evidence for the case to protect the Delaware River watershed, by making the fracking moratorium at the time into a permanent ban.
The DRBC ban affects two counties in Pennsylvania, a state where fracking is otherwise widespread and regulation is incremental—despite a strong majority of those recently polled there supporting more regulation of the industry. Along with the ban on fracking itself, the DRBC also prohibited of range of activities involving the discharge of wastewater from fracking and fracking-related activities to waters or land within the Delaware River Basin in order to “avoid injury to the waters of the Basin… and protect the public health and preserve the waters.”
Map showing DRBC's Special Protection Waters and the Marcellus Shale formation, View Here.
In early March 2025, a newly-elected Pennsylvania congressperson convened a roundtable with the new EPA administrator Lee Zeldin, industry representatives, and other elected officials, where they reportedly discussed challenging the DRBC’s permanent ban as well as “the need to unleash the natural gas resources in the Delaware River Basin and throughout the country.” As mentioned above, the DRBC leadership, which has legal authority over the Basin’s water quality and distribution, includes just one federal appointee, out of the five members. The Commission was established in 1961, until which the Delaware River “was considered an open sewer for public and industrial waste.”
Just earlier this year the DRBC’s permanent ban from 2021 was upheld in U.S. District Court, after a protracted challenge by a land- and mineral owning group. Riverkeeper Maya van Rossum, named as defendant in the case along with the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, said, “DRBC has the authority to ban fracking…. Our watershed remains protected and this spurious lawsuit no longer hangs over our communities as a sword of Damocles just waiting to unleash the horrors and ravages of fracking on our river, communities or future generations.” An earlier lawsuit brought on by state senators had also been dismissed.
Continuing our long commitment to ensuring that scientific evidence and public health are centered in all policy discussion around fracking, CHPNY volunteers jumped at the opportunity to offer testimony at the DRBC’s March 2025 public meeting, on the heels of the recently held roundtable with EPA’s pro-fracking Administrator Zeldin. Excerpts of their remarks:
Over 2,000 research studies demonstrate adverse human health impacts from fracking. These adverse health impacts relate to three main pathways of contamination: 1) leaks of toxins into the air from well sites and fracking infrastructure; 2) leaks of toxins into subsurface aquifers through induced fractures, cracked well bores, and fracking waste disposal; and 3) contamination from toxins during onsite “storage” or offsite transport and disposal of drilling and fracking waste. The magnitude of documented adverse health impacts reveals the magnitude of these contaminations. Over time, virtually every fracking well site leaks, and many leak from the very first day that they are drilled. Fracking can also cause earthquakes, which dramatically increase the chances of leakage. Because toxic materials and leakage are inherent to the nature of fracking activities, regulations may reduce but cannot eliminate these forms of contamination.
—Kathleen Nolan, MD, MSL
I’d like to take this time to review a recent article about the health effects of fracking in Pennsylvania, one of the DRBC states. It was published in the Lancet, a world recognized medical journal…. Fracking in Pennsylvania began in the early 2000’s, and the authors of this article looked at Medicare claims from 2002 to 2015 from Pennsylvania counties bordering New York State and compared them to claims from bordering counties in New York State during the same time period, where fracking had been banned. They looked at five health outcomes: heart attack, COPD and bronchiectasis, congestive heart failure, ischemic heart disease, and stroke. What they found was not surprising. Fracking had a strong association with increased hospitalization for heart attack relative to neighboring regions in New York where fracking was banned. There were also strong associations with heart failure and ischemic heart disease.
—Barton Schoenfeld, MD, FACC
It seems clear to us, as stated by van Rossum, that the DRBC has full authority to ban fracking and related activities in the Delaware River Basin—the water supply for an estimated 14.2 million people—and to maintain this ban permanently going forward. The Delaware River Basin Commission, aided by scientists and health professionals, should staunchly and proactively protect the Delaware River Basin, especially in its role to supply drinking water to millions, but also more generally in terms of public health and safety, from the many thoroughly documented risks and harms of fracking and its infrastructure.
Argentina is one of the places where CHPNY has collaborated on fighting fracking, to prevent community and climate harms. We're looking forward to this event, hosted by our colleagues at the Collaborative for Health and Environment, and also joined by Observatorio Petrolero Sur and Territorio de Ideas. The latter two groups are translating the ninth edition fracking science Compendium, with the chapter on Infrastructure complete and available now. You are welcome to join the March 26, 2025 webinar!
