A new report from the national advocacy organization Food & Water Watch outlines the social costs of fracking, including everything from more traffic accidents to more disorderly conduct arrests and STDs. Using the heavily fracked state of Pennsylvania as a case study, Food & Water Watch found that fracking brings woes other than toxic water contamination and air pollution—it changes the quality of life in rural communities, too. Previously quiet country roads are suddenly clogged with heavy vehicle traffic jams, along with light and sound pollution that can disrupt residents’ health and the health of animals in the vicinity. Community safety changes, too, as substance abuse and alcohol-related crimes often increase in heavily fracked zones.
 “We need clean energy jobs that are good for communities, workers, and the environment, but fracking isn’t going to get us there,” Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. “The social costs of fracking aren’t just costing the communities where fracking is occurring. They’re affecting the laborers, as well. Oil and gas industry workers and America deserve better.” Here are some takeaway stats from the report, which compared unfracked counties in Pennsylvania to fracked counties:


Once fracking began in 2005, heavy truck crashes increased 7.2% in the rural Pennsylvania counties with the heaviest density of fracking, compared to a 12.4% decline in unfracked rural counties. Sometimes, trucks accidents spilled toxic fracking wastewater into surface waters;
Disorderly conduct arrests increased 17.1% in the most heavily fracked rural counties, one-third more than the 12.7% increase in unfracked counties;
The number of chlamydia and gonorrhea cases increased 32.4% in heavily fracked counties, 62% more than the increase in unfracked rural counties.


There are plenty of other reasons to keep fracking and its related practices, such as wastewater disposal, out of your neighborhood. Fracking is terribly energy intensive, and it’s as polluting as burning coal for power. Some communities in Pennsylvania have even lost their clean water supplies and suffered plummeting property values as a result. More from Prevention: What An STD AndThroat CancerHave In Common