Why Are Cows Tails Dropping Off?

"In Pennsylvania, the oil and gas industry is already on a tear—drilling thousands of feet into ancient seabeds, then repeatedly fracturing (or “fracking”) these wells with millions of gallons of highly pressurized, chemically laced water, which shatters the surrounding shale and releases fossil fuels. New York, meanwhile, is on its own natural-resource tear, with hundreds of newly opened breweries, wineries, organic dairies and pastured livestock operations—all of them capitalizing on the metropolitan area’s hunger to localize its diet."

But there’s growing evidence that these two impulses, toward energy and food independence, may be at odds with each other.

[Read the entire article from The Nation here.]

"Jacki Schilke and her sixty cattle live in the top left corner of North Dakota, a windswept, golden-hued landscape in the heart of the Bakken Shale. Schilke’s neighbors love her black Angus beef, but she’s no longer sharing or eating it—not since fracking began on thirty-two oil and gas wells within three miles of her 160-acre ranch and five of her cows dropped dead. Schilke herself is in poor health. A handsome 53-year-old with a faded blond ponytail and direct blue eyes, she often feels lightheaded when she ventures outside. She limps and has chronic pain in her lungs, as well as rashes that have lingered for a year. Once, a visit to the barn ended with respiratory distress and a trip to the emergency room. Schilke also has back pain linked with overworked kidneys, and on some mornings she urinates a stream of blood."

New York State is now doing a study on the possible negative health effects of of fracking.  How many cases do we have to read about before we have to concede that, yes, fracking makes us sick along with our animals and environment?  In the words of an old song, "How many years will it take till we know that too many people have died?  In many cases, the answer is "blowin' in the wind," quite literally.

We all are subjected daily to the drug commercials, and at the end, of course, we hear all the side effects, including death in some cases.  Well, how about lingering rashes, nosebleeds, respiratory trauma, oh, and cows' tails falling off?  Still want to take the medicine?