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Will Dean
Amy Lynch-Biniek
Eng 023
24 November 2015

Affects humans have on the

Environment

Imagine this, you are sitting in your room relaxing, watching TV,
scrolling through twitter feed or doing homework on a nice beautiful day. You
walk downstairs to get a snack out of the fridge and when you reach for the
fridge door, you notice the glassware begins slightly vibrating. Its a slight
shaking but it slowly grows bigger and bigger, louder and louder. You look out
your window to see whats going on and as the shaking is so intense, you see
your neighbors house get eaten up and destroyed by some machine that
youve never seen before. As it destroys your neighbors house with no
hesitation and is headed directly to your house, you have two options: try to
fight the machine or run.
Now Im not going to speak for you but I would guess the majority of
people would run. These are the options some animals have to make daily.

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Animals are slowly pushed away and their habitats are destroyed. If they
dont run away, they go down with their homes. Even if an animal comes
back to its previously destroyed home, it is most likely there is a roadway,
shopping center or housing development.
When was the last time you went on a hike through the woods? On that
hike, did you see any animals? If you did, then I consider you a bit lucky. I
love seeing animals because I dont think I see enough; you see humans
almost everywhere you go and maybe a squirrel or bird. Especially walking to
class, I see hundreds of other people and one squirrel, sometimes not even
the squirrel. Humans have dominated the population on earth for the last
couple centurys and as that number goes up, so does the demand for land
and natural resources.
Anyway it has been a while for me but I used to go hiking with my dad
and brother often. We would go all over the place, for example, if we went to
my uncles in Maryland we would stop at trails that my dad would find out
about. There was this one trail we stopped at on the way home. We passed
over this huge dam and went down a couple roads and made it to the bottom
of the dam where there was a trail. I remember looking up at the dam and
just how big it was, it was astonishing. Also that day we saw a beautiful bald
eagle flying around its nest up on a tower and that was the first time I ever
saw an eagle. The water was very low and you could see all the rocks that
were recently submerged now getting dried by the sun. The lights started
flashing and that meant the gates were opening so we got to watch that as

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well. That was amazing seeing how much water and how fast the water
comes out of dams. We were right on the edge and saw this one guy
standing there watching the eagle and the water flow out, just like us. We
started talking to him and he pointed out that the birds would wait until the
gates opened and some fish would get sucked into the turbines, getting
chopped up, and it was easy pickings for the birds. As cool as this was, it still
wasnt good for the fish, bringing me to my first point of how humans affect
animals: dams.

Dams
Dams are a great revolutionary invention that helps get areas that
have dry, unfertile soil to healthy, farmable land. This spreads opportunity
for farming all over the place. Other pros of dams are recreational use
(meaning for skiing and boating facilities), help flood control during storms,
water usage for industrial, municipal and agricultural use, irrigation and
electric generation.
Although dams are very beneficial, they can be costly to the
environment. For a healthy ecosystem, there needs to be biodiversity,
productivity, species assemblage composition (from the bottom feeders up
on the food chain) and a food web. Dams can affect every single one of these
categories for a healthy ecosystems. An article by David Crook discusses
some of the negative effects that dams have on the environment and

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animals. For example, Dams stop all species on one side of the river from
making it downstream, which is crucial for many species lives. (David
Crook) Once a dam is built into a river, it stops everything except water from
getting to the other side. Stopping fish from migrating to places they
recently had gone to mate. Many fish and other organisms travel to areas
untouched by humans to breed, this migration is very important as they
bring energy and nutrients that are crucial to productivity.
When fish cant get through a dam, it causes stress on the animal.
Which can, in some cases cause local extinctions in a species. This alters
the patterns of ecological connectivity in the affected river ecosystems
(David Crook) When a species is cut off from one side of the river, where they
have previously thrived, it can be bad for the ecosystem of the river. Once a
species is cut off by a dam, their energy, nutrients, other plants and species
on the food chain might get cut away from the species that once depended
on all that. This can shatter the food web if species higher up rely solely on a
species lower on the food chain. This can lead to their food source getting
cut from there food web. Also when fish are trying to get to the other side, if
the dam opens the gates, the water gets pulled through the turbines and the
fish can get sucked in and chopped up by the turbines and intakes.

Oil Spills

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Another way we affect animals and the environment are oil spills.
Oil helps us fuel our cars, machines, heat our homes and advance in
technology. Without oil we would not have as good of transportation, such as
cars and planes. Also we wouldnt be able to heat our homes with oil and
have to use coal which can be very expensive; and we wouldnt have been
able to go to the moon. Although having those benefits, they come with
negative effects on the environment.
We are human so we are not perfect, one of the mistakes we make are
oil spills. A website called rotary and workover rig counts keeps track of how
many rigs there are in the world and how much oil each rig produces weekly.
There are 3597 oil rigs in the world. (James Williams) That is a lot of

ginormous rigs extracting a lot of oil at once if you ask me.

Humans, not being perfect, have inevitable room for error. With the
process of extracting oil, you have to be near perfect or the area around will
be harmed. Alaska is a gold mine for oil and in the Gulf of Alaska, there are
many different species and organisms that thrive there: 1. Because the
ecosystem is productive as there is a lot of different food available and 2.
Successful evolving in species allow them to survive the sub-arctic ocean.
They have not evolved to withstand oil spills though. We set up oil rigs in the
gulf to extract the oil out of the ground and then transport it in ships. Places
of error are if the pipelines leading back to the rig explode from pressure, get
punctured somehow, if the ships explodes or if the ship gets punctured by
something. If one of these errors occur, it can be costly to the environment.

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In the Gulf of Alaska specifically, the water is very cold, and the lower
you go the colder it gets because less sunlight makes it through. When an oil
spill occurs, it lays a dark brown layer on top of the water and minimum
sunlight gets through (even less before). This drops the temperature of the
water the lower you go and some animals cant withstand the even colder
temperatures than before. Also when oil is leaked in large quantities into the
water, small organisms in the area, which are crucial for the food web, are
either killed by the oils or become toxic so if a larger species does eat the
organism, the species can become sick. The oil can also kill many fish or
birds the same way, if the species cant escape the oil, it is engulfed in the
oil and either suffocates or gets sick.
Now to a little warmer and more tropical area, the Gulf of Mexico. In an
article written in April 2011 called Deadly Toll a group followed the BP
catastrophic oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In the article
they reported that Nearly 205.8 million gallons of oil and 225,000 tons of
methane leaked into the Gulf of Mexico also that In total, we found that the
oil spill has likely harmed or killed approximately 82,000 birds of 102 species,
approximately 6,165 sea turtles, and up to 25,900 marine mammals,
including bottlenose Dolphins, spinner dolphins, melon-headed whales and
sperm whales. The spill also harmed an unknown number of fish. (Bobby
Jindal) Those are some devastating numbers, especially with some whales
and dolphins that are on the endangered species list. A spill as devastating
as that is not only possible for public extinction but total extinction in some

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species. If there is a high death toll in a species, it is hard to come back from
and can take years to get back to the steady population they were once at.

Fracking
Since the 20th century the modern technology of shale fracking has
become very popular. It is a new source of fuel that is more affordable, burns
cleaner than previous energy sources such as coal and oil and has the
potential to possibly keep us supplied with natural gas for around a hundred
years. Those are some good benefits and reasons to become popular but all
the popularity is not only because of the good benefits. It has grown negative
popularity with many of the people and families that live close to a shale
fracking site. The process also has many controversial hazards or side effects
on the environment and animals.
Hydraulic fracking is the process of getting shale gas. Shale gas is the
natural gas trapped in shale rock deposits scattered around the country.
Hydro-fracking used to be thought of as too expensive and dangerous to try
to extract. But ever since the demand has spiked for a new form of energy,
federal government agencies have tried to find ways to get down to the
shale rock deposits and how to crack them open.
In an article written by Alex Prudhomme, he discusses the process of
fracking, the benefits and the negatives of hydro fracking. He explains the
actual way fracking works better than I ever could. He explains it as

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hydraulic fracturing is where fluids (water, sand, and chemicalssuch as

antifreeze, hydrochloric acid, and 2-BE ethylene glycol) are injected
underground at very high pressure to crack open the dense shale rock,
allowing gas or oil to flow to the surface, where it is captured for our use.
(Alex, 2 of introduction) How did scientists come up with this? You might be
asking, but when you mix those compounds and send them as hard as
physically possible into the ground, it probably can destroy almost anything.
This is where hydro-fracking becomes controversial, some think that this
process is revolutionary to the way we get and can use energy and others
think it is an environmental nightmare. So lets cover both sides.
The use of fracking has made it into public speakings, many articles
and government debates. It is highly talked about and it does have great
benefits even though it has some horrible setbacks. As humans, we have
now come to rely on energy use and without it we would likely go crazy,
especially now that winter is approaching and the cold weather kicks in. We
need energy producing gases to power our cars and large machinery and to
heat our homes. Gas and oil were getting very expensive as prices began to
rise over $4. This is where, as I was talking about, the government was
seeking a way to tap the shale deposits. Once they did figure out how, you
could sure call that revolutionary. Hydro-fracking produces 4.9 million
barrels a day (Price). Which promptly almost cut the price in half and
brought it back down to roughly $2.45 (depending on state and gas station).

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Not only does fracking get us oil and gas for energy but it creates jobs,
which is another controversy in America right now. In the National Journal, an
article done by Clare Foran, discusses how many jobs were created in
Pennsylvania alone. Clare says that Tom Corbett lied in his governor debate,
where he said it created 200,000 jobs in PA, but that number was just a
guess She also adds Pennsylvania is at the center of the fracking boom,
and according to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry it has
created roughly 30,000 jobs directly linked to natural gas production (Clare
Foran)
Although fracking has some very good benefits it has very negative
effects on the environment and animals, including us. When the chemicals
and water reach the well, the pressure cracks the shale rocks making long
narrow cracks in the rocks. This allows the natural gas to flow into the wells.
An article done by Linda Dong discusses the process and negative effects of
fracking. Linda says that During this process methane gas and toxic
chemicals leach out from the system and contaminate nearby groundwater.
Methane concentrations are 17x higher in drinking-water wells and rivers
near fracking sites than in normal wells. (Linda Dong) Contaminated water
is used for drinking by nearby cities and towns. This is very unhealthy as
animals or humans should not be consuming any type of chemical, especially
methane. There have been over 1,000 documented cases of water
contamination next to areas of gas drilling as well as cases of sensory,

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respiratory, and neurological damage due to ingested contaminated

water.(Linda Dong)
To add onto the health risks is an article written by Michelle Bamberger
& Robert E. Oswald on the long term impacts of unconventional drilling. They
say that "The gases released by fracking pollute ponds, rivers, creeks, and
water wells with methane and other chemicals. Causing a greater risk of
respitory system disease, cardiovascular disease and cancer. (Bamberger,
14) Those health risks are affecting animals and humans.
The last environmental effect I am going to discuss is from the article
by Linda Dong again. She says that Only 30-50% of the fracturing fluid is
recovered, the rest of the toxic fluid is left in the ground and is not
biodegradable. The waste fluid is left in open air pits to evaporate, releasing
harmful VOCs (volatile organic compounds) into the atmosphere, creating
contaminated air, acid rain, and ground level ozone. (Linda Dong) Which
means that more than just the areas near the hydro-fracking sites can be
contaminated as well!
Conclusion
We need to make a change. If we dont change the way we go about
getting raw materials, like oil and electricity, animals will continue to
decrease in population as we humans continue to grow. On hikes or walks,
you will see more humans and less animals than you already do. We dont
think of how other living species are affected by something we are doing as

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long as we are happy. This comes to me as bit selfish. Dont get me wrong; I
love heat and driving just as much as you. What Im saying is we need to
look for and try to find better alternatives that dont affect the environment
as much. Canada is helping keep ecosystems connected by building animal
crossroads over the highways so that animals can safely cross the highway.
This is an example of an alternative we can do to help keep animals safe.
Animals dont have a say for whether or not a mall gets put up somewhere.
We need to be there voice.

Works Cited
Bamberger, Michelle & Robert E. Oswald. "Long-term Impacts of
Unconventional Drilling
Operations on Human and Animal Health" Journal of Environmental
Science and Health. Online book. 2015. 18 Oct, 2015
Crook A, David. "Science of Total Environment." Science of the Total
Environment volume 534.
14, Nov 2014. Web. 18, Oct 2015
Dong, Linda What goes in and out of Hydraulic Fracturing. PDF File

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Foran, Clare How Many Jobs Does Fracking Really Create? National Journal.
14, April 2015.
Web. 1, Nov 2015
Jindal, Bobby A Deadly Tool Center for Biological Diversity. April 2011. 1,
Nov 2015
Prudhomme, Alex Producing Oil and Natural Gas from Shale. Nova science
publishers. 2015.
1, Nov 2015
Prince, Marcello and Tovar, A. Carlos How Much U.S. Oil and Gas Comes
From Fracking?
Corporate Intelligence. April 2015. Web. 1, Nov 2015
Williams L, James Rotary and Workover Rig Counts Weekly Rotary Rig
Count. March 2015.
Web. 28, Oct 2015

Cover Letter
I choose to write about /how humans effect the environment and
animals because I want to inform people that if we continue to go about how
we get oil, natural gas and electricity then animals will decrease in

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population. I want to make everyone aware of the situation but my target

audience is high school students. I want to target them because they are the
future and we are the ones who can make a change eventually. Change
doesn't happen immediately, especially when there aren't many alternatives
for dams, oil transportation and fracking. There are people that are pushing
for change like the WWF that protects animals and other organizations that
try to slow or stop the fracking process because of the chemicals used and
that are released. I want to make students aware that if they want to make a
change, they can join the cause. I think this is my best work yet. I my articles
are concerted in the intro and conclusion. When I talk about each topic, I
start with the benefits and then go to the negatives; using facts and phrases
that I think help the paper. I said I would do this since the 'organize a big
project' rough draft. I never really understood work cited and how to cite but
I believe I got it down in this paper. I feel like my conclusion is a bit weak but
couldn't figure out how to make it stronger. I feel like I could also talk about
alternatives but there aren't many for fracking, dams and oil. It's either do it
and affect animals or don't and then we don't get the benefits. Before
reading I want you to know that I feel like I have grown stronger in writing
papers and getting information from articles better (critical reading). I hope
that this paper proves and
shows you that I have improved.