Five-state study finds high levels of airborne chemicals near oil and gas sites
Dirk DeTurck had a years-old rash that wouldn’t go away, his wife’s hair came out in chunks and any time they lingered outside their house for more than an hour, splitting headaches set in.
They were certain the cause was simply breathing the air in Greenbrier, Arkansas, the rural community to which they'd retired a decade ago. They blamed the gas wells all around them. But state officials didn’t investigate.
So DeTurck leapt at the chance to help with research that posed a pressing question: What’s in the air near oil and gas production sites?
The answer — in many of the areas monitored for the peer-reviewed study, published today in the journal Environmental Health — is “potentially dangerous compounds and chemical mixtures” that can make people feel ill and raise their risk of cancer.
“The implications for health effects are just enormous,” said David O. Carpenter, the paper’s senior author and director of the University at Albany’s Institute for Health and the Environment.
In 40 percent of the air samples, laboratory tests found benzene, formaldehyde or other toxic substances associated with oil and gas production above levels the federal government considers safe for brief or longer-term exposure, according to the study. Far above, in some cases.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America referred questions about the study to Energy In Depth, an outreach campaign it launched in 2009. Energy In Depth spokeswoman Katie Brown criticized the involvement of Global Community Monitor, a nonprofit that trained DeTurck and other volunteers to gather the samples.
“It’s difficult to see how Global Community Monitor, a group that dubiously claims no amount of regulation will ever make fracking safe, could make a constructive contribution within the scientific community," Brown said by email.
The study monitored air at locations in Arkansas, Colorado, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming.
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Big Oil, Bad Air. Fracking the Eagle Ford Shale of South Texas. Click here to read more stories in this investigation.
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Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
