Not so long ago, EPA claimed that existing permits for a proposed large surface mine in West Virginia should be revoked because of its potential impacts on the Louisiana waterthrush. See Spruce No. 1 Surface Mining Proposed Determination, p. 19. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-05/documents/sprucepropdeterm.pdf. [1] As coal production has diminished and shale gas production has increased, however, funding for evaluation of environmental impacts has also shifted to the gas industry. Now, all the rage among the waterthrush crowd are the potential impacts drilling gas wells in the Marcellus shale formation.
Recently, researchers at West Virginia University examined the potential effects of drilling in the Lewis Wetzel Wildlife Management Area in northwest West Virginia on the Louisiana waterthrush. See Mack W. Frantz, Petra B. Wood, James Sheehan and Gregory George, Demographic response of Louisiana Waterthrush, a stream obligate songbird of conservation concern, to shale gas development (Feb. 2018). https://www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.1650/CONDOR-17-130.1. The article follows a pattern familiar to those who have followed publications on the potential environmental and health effects of fossil fuels—it concludes only that “shale gas development can affect the reproductive success and productivity of a wildlife population” and offers a fuzzy theory about causation (“likely through the presence of shale gas infrastructure and by indirect negative effects on stream health and aquatic prey”). It then declared the need for additional “species and area-specific studies,” including “clarification of the specific mechanisms involved in species’ responses.”[2]
But the publication did not suggest that the impacts measured were caused by anything unique to gas well drilling. Instead, the authors concluded that “increasing … aquatic … health will necessitate measures to protect water quality from upstream sediment load and [unidentified] pollutant sources”—a generic statement that could be leveled against any ground-disturbing activity. There is no attempt in the publication to suggest that the measured impacts are related to hydraulic fracturing.
Those limitations, however, have not stopped opponents of gas development from linking the apparent impacts to “hydraulic fracturing.” See https://www.birdwatchingdaily.com/blog/2018/02/14/fracking-increases-waterthrush-declines/ (“After 12 years of research conducted with this species, I have seen the numerous impacts hydraulic fracturing has had on waterthrush survival and the toll that the industry has had on our nation’s wild places and wildlife,” adds Louisiana State University-Alexandria’s Leesia Marshall, a waterthrush expert) and https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/02/180214093850.htm (“[W]e’ve known almost nothing about how [“fracking”] is affecting the region’s songbird populations—until now.”). This pattern—the publication of studies that do not claim a causal connection, and in many cases not even a potential causal pathway, to be followed by sensational headlines–is a familiar one. See “The Problem with Peer Review. A Standard that Doesn’t Always Translate Well in the Media or Courtroom” (2016).
This article was authored by Robert G. McLusky, Jackson Kelly PLLC.
[1] See also, EPA Guilty of Environmental Hyperbole in Mountaintop Mining Veto, pp. 7-9. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=9&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwiK2bblttPZAhXr6YMKHRT8AscQFghaMAg&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cei.org%2Fsites%2Fdefault%2Ffiles%2FWilliam%2520Yeatman%2520-%2520EPA%2520Guilty%2520of%2520Environmental%2520Hyperbole.pdf&usg=AOvVaw0lkXlQGNUDVWA79_I11ulg
[2] In an earlier publication, some of the same authors suggested that gas-related land clearing had adversely affected the diversity of aquatic insects in nearby streams, which in turn affected nest density or productivity. The effects on nest survival and productivity they saw in areas within 100 yards of gas-related disturbance were related to impacts from any kind of land disturbance. See Petra B. Wood, Mack W. Frantz, and Douglas A. Becker (2016) Louisiana Waterthrush and Benthic Macroinvertebrate Response to Shale Gas Development. Journal of Fish and Wildlife Management: December 2016, Vol. 7, No. 2, pp. 423-43. https://www.fwspubs.org/doi/10.3996/092015-JFWM-084
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