Burning Questions: Quarantined Cows Give Birth to Dead Calves

Kim Payn­ter / WHYY/Newsworks.org

Cows graze within sight of a drill rig in Lycoming County.

This is part of an ongo­ing StateIm­pact series answer­ing reader-submitted burn­ing ques­tions about nat­ural gas drilling. Last week, we tack­led water test­ing, whether or not frack­ing can lead to earth­quakes, the sta­tus of the state’s deep injec­tion wells, and all things water. Today we’re fol­low­ing up to a story cov­ered heav­ily by the press more than a year ago.

In late April 2010, drilling waste water from a large stor­age pond leaked through its plas­tic liner and flowed onto a cow pas­ture in Ship­pen Town­ship, Tioga County. Farm­ers Don and Carol John­son found the leak, along with the hoof prints of 28 beef cat­tle who had wan­dered through and pos­si­bly drank the con­t­a­m­i­nated water. The waste water came from a well that had been fracked on their prop­erty by East Resources.

When tested, the water con­tained chlo­ride, iron, sul­fate, bar­ium, mag­ne­sium, man­ganese, potas­sium, sodium, stron­tium and cal­cium. The spill killed all veg­e­ta­tion in an area 30 feet by 40 feet. In early May, Pennsylvania’s Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture quar­an­tined the cows, wor­ried that the result­ing beef could be tainted and make peo­ple sick. East Resources objected to the quar­an­tine, say­ing it was an unnec­es­sary step to take. It was Pennsylvania’s first quar­an­tine result­ing from gas drilling.

In this most recent “burn­ing ques­tion” we’re look­ing at what hap­pened to those cows. The ques­tion comes from Andy Leahy, and it’s a good one. Leahy is a blog­ger with NY Shale Gas Now. He asked the ques­tion because he says reporters will often seize on a poten­tially cat­a­strophic head­line, but fail to follow-up and report the real impact.

“Well, you don’t put hoof marks in that water, that deep, with­out some­body drink­ing some­thing,” says Johnson.

The water had a high salt con­tent, and John­son says ani­mals, includ­ing cows, like to lick up salt.

Of the orig­i­nal cows, only ten year­lings are still quar­an­tined. But John­son says of the eleven calves born this spring, only 3 have survived.

“It’s abom­inable,” says John­son, who along with her hus­band Don, has been rais­ing cows on that land for 53 years, after tak­ing over the farm from Don Johnson’s grand­fa­ther. “They were born dead or extremely weak. It’s highly unusual,” she said. “I might lose one or two calves a year, but I don’t lose eight out of eleven.”

John­son says necrop­sies of two calves have been per­formed and it lists E. coli bac­te­ria as the cause of death. She says a vet­eri­nar­ian she con­sulted said if the cows did con­sume the frack water, that could have com­pro­mised their immune sys­tem. But the necrop­sies them­selves are incon­clu­sive when it comes to a direct link between the con­t­a­m­i­na­tion and the weak and still­born calves.

The cows them­selves appear healthy. It’s unclear what the cows ingested or how it impacted them because to test for tox­ins, they would have to be killed.

The Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture con­firmed the sta­tus of the quar­an­tine. But we have yet to hear back from them on what type of follow-up occurred, and what their own vet­eri­nar­i­ans con­cluded about the still­born calves.

We also con­tacted the state Depart­ment of Envi­ron­men­tal Pro­tec­tion, which con­ducted the ini­tial inves­ti­ga­tions of the spill. DEP says they have con­cluded their inves­ti­ga­tion and fined East Resources more than $36,000. Although we con­tacted the inspec­tor work­ing for the oil and gas divi­sion, we heard back from a press per­son. The press office told us to con­tact the Depart­ment of Agri­cul­ture, and we were also instructed not to con­tact employ­ees for the oil and gas divi­sion because they are too busy to speak to reporters.

Shell Oil and Gas has since taken over East Resources, and now con­trols the lease. John­son says she wants Shell to buy her entire herd of cat­tle and start fresh. And she warns hunters she sees near her prop­erty not to eat any of the game they catch. “Deer, grouse, rab­bits, they’re up on that [well] pad lick­ing,” she says. “They don’t know what’s in the water.…The whole thing has become one big mess.”

We asked Shell if they would be will­ing to buy the John­son cows but haven’t yet heard back from them. We’ll let you know when we do. Carol John­son says she reg­u­larly tests her water for con­t­a­m­i­nants and so far, it’s come up clean.