EcoWatch, Anastasia Pantsios, September 11, 2014
A new study
provided more ammunition for what public health experts and environmental
activists have been saying since fracking became widespread in the last half
decade: chemicals used in the natural gas drilling process can be hazardous to health.
 |
| The Yale-based research team that produced the study looked at families in southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale region who use ground-fed water wells. |
The study
“Proximity to Natural Gas Wells and Reported
Health Status: Results of a Household Survey in Washington County,
Pennsylvania,” published yesterday in Environmental Health Perspectives, found
that people who live near fracking sites have more health problems than those
who don’t.
The
Yale-based research team that produced the study looked at families in
southwestern Pennsylvania’s Marcellus shale region who use ground-fed water
wells. Surveying 492 individuals in 180 households, researchers found a
significantly greater number of skin and respiratory problems among those who
lived within one kilometer of a natural gas well than those who lived two
kilometers away.
Washington
County has 624 active gas wells with 95 percent of those fracked.
“Despite
assurances by the drilling industry and numerous government officials that
fracking chemicals do not pose a risk to nearby populations, scientists and
environmentalists have repeatedly voiced concern over the high volume of
chemicals used in the process and the potential for both groundwater and
airborne contamination,” writes Lauren McCauley at Common Dreams.
The
researchers explained the impetus for the studying saying, “Little is known
about the environmental and public health impact of unconventional natural gas
extraction activities including hydraulic fracturing that occur near
residential areas.”
“While much
of the hydraulic fracturing process takes place deep underground, there are a
number of potential mechanisms for chemicals used in the fracturing process as
well as naturally occurring minerals, petroleum compounds, and other substances
of flow back water to enter drinking water supplies,” they warned. “If
contaminants from hydraulic fracturing activities were able to enter drinking
water supplies or surface water bodies, humans could be exposed to such
contaminants through drinking, cooking, showering, and swimming.”
They also
suggested that there could be airborn contamination through flaring, operation
of diesel equipment, and leakage. And with stress from the noise and other
activities around the wells mentioned by many respondents, they suggested this
could be impacting health outcomes as well.
Their
conclusion: “While these results should be viewed as hypothesis generating, and
the population studied was limited to households with a ground-fed water
supply, proximity of natural gas wells may be associated with the prevalence of
health symptoms including dermal and respiratory conditions in residents living
near natural gas extraction activities. Further study of these associations,
including the role of specific air and water exposures, is warranted.”
They also
warned of even greater potential danger lurking down the road. Since most of
the wells are only five or six years old, they said, “one would not yet expect
to see associations with diseases with long latency, such as cancer.
Furthermore, if some of the impact of natural gas extraction on ground water
happens over a number of years, this initial survey could have failed to detect
health consequences of delayed contamination.”
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