Toxic pollutants in fracking county air

New study finds fracking releases cancer-causing chemicals into the air many times higher than the EPA considers safe

The fracking process releases toxic chemicals into the air.

Emissions generated by fracking operations may be exposing people to some toxic pollutants at levels higher than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for long-term exposure, according to scientists from Oregon State University and the University of Cincinnati.

The researchers took air samples in Carroll County, the home of 480 permitted wells––the most in any of Ohio's 88 counties.

The team found chemicals released during oil and gas extraction that can raise people's risk of cancer and respiratory ailments.

Researchers caution they don't want to create undue alarm with their findings, but they say they hope the results will highlight the urgent need to conduct more in-depth studies of fracking emissions and the potential effects on human health.

"What we see here suggests that more needs to be known about the risks people face when exposed," said study co-leader Erin Haynes, a University of Cincinnati scientist.

Based on the data collected, researchers calculated the cancer risk posed by airborne contaminants in the Carroll County study areas.

For the worst-case scenario––exposure 24 hours a day over 25 years––they found that a person anywhere in the study area would be exposed at a risk level exceeding the threshold the EPA deems acceptable.

The lifetime cancer risk in the study area estimated for maximum residential exposure was 2.9 in 10,000, which is nearly three times the EPA's acceptable risk level of 1 in 10,000, according to the study.

Anderson cautioned that the study numbers are worst-case estimates and can't predict the risk to any individual.

The EPA did not respond to questions about the findings.

The study focused on pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH). These are organic compounds containing carbon and hydrogen, found in fossil fuels.

The study mirrored other research conducted in heavily fracked areas of the country, including Texas and Pennsylvania, that have focused on volatile organic compounds. These chemicals, including benzene and toluene, also are carbon-based chemicals in the same chain as those studied in Ohio––and they present similar dangers to human health.

With fracking on the rise across the country, the study authors and other scientists say there are simply too many unknowns about the potential health effects associated with the toxic chemicals released from oil and gas operations.

'Growing Concerns and a Lot of Questions'

The study got its start when a group of citizens approached Haynes, a public health expert at the University of Cincinnati, seeking information about health risks from natural gas extraction near their homes.

None of those people said they were sickened by breathing the air, but they wanted to know more about the potential consequences, Anderson said.

"There was some concern with all of the wells that were starting to go in around their homes," Anderson said. "People want to know; wanted to get answers about how all the [fracking] activity might be affecting them."

Anderson and her associates teamed with Haynes to design a study that relied on volunteers to collect air samples in Carroll County, which is home to about 30,000 people.

After volunteers were recruited through a community meeting and word-of-mouth, air samplers were placed on the properties of 23 volunteers; they lived or worked at sites ranging from immediate proximity to a gas well to a little more than three miles away.

The aluminum box monitors contained specially treated material that absorbed contaminants. The volunteers were trained in proper handling of the samplers and documenting data.

At the conclusion of the study, the samplers were sealed in airtight bags and returned to Anderson's lab at OSU for analysis.

The samplers picked up high levels of pollution associated with fracking in the areas studied, according to the report. Levels taken within one-tenth of a mile of a well were highest; they decreased by about 30 percent in samples taken a little more than three miles from a well.

Source: Inside Climate News 
This article has been edited for length.

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Oil and gas drilling connected to earthquakes, studies show

Man-made quakes are a concern, experts say.

With the evidence coming in from one study after another, scientists are now more certain than ever that oil and gas drilling is causing hundreds upon hundreds of earthquakes across the U.S.

So far, the quakes have been mostly small and have done little damage beyond cracking plaster, toppling bricks and rattling nerves.

But seismologists warn that the shaking can dramatically increase the chances of bigger, more dangerous quakes.

Up to now, the oil and gas industry has generally argued that any such link requires further study.

But the rapidly mounting evidence could bring heavier regulation down on drillers and make it more difficult for them to get projects approved.

The potential for man-made quakes "is an important and legitimate concern that must be taken very seriously by regulators and industry," said Jason Bordoff, founding director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University.

He said companies and states can reduce the risk by taking such steps as monitoring operations more closely, imposing tighter standards and recycling wastewater from drilling instead of injecting it underground.

A series of government and academic studies over the past few years has added to the body of evidence implicating the U.S. drilling boom that has created a bounty of jobs and tax revenue over the past decade or so.

The U.S. Geological Survey has released the first comprehensive maps pinpointing more than a dozen areas in the central and eastern U.S. that have been jolted by quakes that the researchers said were triggered by drilling.

The report said man-made quakes tied to industry operations have been on the rise.

Scientists have mainly attributed the spike to the injection of wastewater deep underground, a practice they say can activate dormant faults.

Only a few cases of shaking have been blamed on fracking, in which large volumes of water, sand and chemicals are pumped into rock formations to crack them open and free oil or gas.

"The picture is very clear" that wastewater injection can cause faults to move, said USGS geophysicist William Ellsworth.

For decades, earthquakes were an afterthought in the central and eastern U.S., which worried more about tornadoes, floods and hurricanes. Since 2009, quakes have sharply increased, and in some surprising places.

The ground has been trembling in regions that were once seismically stable, including parts of Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma and Texas.

The largest jolt linked to wastewater injection — a magnitude-5.6 that hit Prague, Oklahoma, in 2011 — damaged 200 buildings and shook a college football stadium.

The uptick in Oklahoma quakes has prompted state regulators to require a seismic review of all proposed disposal wells.

Source: KPCC. The article has been edited for length.

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Toxic chemicals skyrocketing near fracking sites

A study found dangerous chemicals such as
benzene and formaldehyde near wells.

Oil and gas wells across the country are spewing “dangerous" cancer-causing chemicals into the air, according to a new study that further corroborates reports of health problems around hydraulic fracturing sites.

“This is a significant public health risk,” says Dr. David Carpenter, director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany-State University of New York and lead author of the study, which was published Thursday in the journal Environmental Health.

“Cancer has a long latency, so you’re not seeing an elevation in cancer in these communities. But five, 10, 15 years from now, elevation in cancer is almost certain to happen.”

Eight poisonous chemicals were found near wells and fracking sites in Arkansas, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wyoming at levels that far exceeded recommended federal limits.

Benzene, a carcinogen, was the most common, as was formaldehyde, which also has been linked to cancer. Hydrogen sulfide, which smells like rotten eggs and can affect the brain and upper-respiratory system, also was found.

The health effects of living near a fracking site have been felt elsewhere, according to separate research.

A study published last month by researchers from the University of Washington and Yale University found residents within a kilometer of a well had up to twice the number of health problems as those living at least 2 kilometers away.

For Carpenter's study, trained volunteers living near the wells conducted air measurements, taking 35 “grab air” samples during heavy industrial activity or when they felt symptoms such as dizziness, nausea or headaches.

Another 41 “passive” tests – meaning samples were taken during a designated period, not merely when levels spiked – were conducted to monitor for formaldehyde. The tests were then sent to accredited labs.

Not every sample exceeded the recommended limits. But in those that did – slightly less than half the samples taken – benzene levels were 35 to 770,000 times greater than normal concentrations, or up to 33 times the exposure a driver might get while fueling his or her car.

Similarly, hydrogen sulfide levels above federal standards were 90 to 60,000 times higher than normal – enough to cause eye and respiratory irritation, fatigue, irritability, poor memory and dizziness after just one hour of exposure.

Excessive formaldehyde levels were 30 to 240 times higher than normal, which a statement on the study described as “more than twice the formaldehyde concentration that occurs in rooms where medical students are dissecting human cadavers, and where most students report respiratory irritation.”

A law passed in 2005 by Congress included what's commonly known as the "Halliburton loophole," which exempts oil and gas companies from federal regulations involving the monitoring and disclosure of fracking chemicals.

“It’s the gift that keeps on giving, the longer you’re exposed to these things,” says Wyoming resident Deb Thomas, who saw a well open across the road from her in 1999 and helped collect air samples for Carpenter’s study.

“I had an asthmatic episode – I’ve never had any asthma, I don’t have a history of asthma. I ended up at the hospital where they gave me breathing treatments. I’ve had really bad rashes.”

Thomas has come across similar symptoms at other unconventional oil and gas sites across the country, where as executive director of the nonprofit group ShaleTest, she’s helped take air samples for low-income families and communities affected by fracking.

“We see a lot of cognitive difficulties,” she says. “People get asthma or breathing difficulty or nose polyps or something with their eyes or their ears ring – the sorts of things that come on very subtly, but you start to notice them.”

However, it’s difficult to determine which health issues are a result of oil and gas operations and which stem from other factors, because symptoms often start only gradually and government air quality studies have proved limited in scope.

“It’s really hard to say what’s from the actual exposure,” Thomas says. “It’s very scary. It’s very hard to get information about what the development is. One minute you’re living your normal life, the next, people start to get really sick and they can’t get any answers.”

Occupational risks for workers

The chemicals may pose major risks to oil and gas workers, too.

“The occupational exposures we’re not even talking about,” Carpenter says. “If anybody is exposed at the levels our results show, these workers are exposed at tremendous levels.”

The American Petroleum Institute, the oil and gas industry’s largest trade and lobbying group, and America’s Natural Gas Alliance, which represents independent gas exploration and production companies, both declined to comment ahead of the study’s release.

Spokesmen at each group referred questions to another industry organization, Energy In Depth, which dismissed the study's methods and conclusions as "dubious."

"Their commitment to banning oil and gas development, and their ideological position that fracking can never be adequately regulated, is clearly why this report comes to such harsh conclusions," says Energy In Depth spokeswoman Katie Brown, referring to the group that trained the volunteers, Global Community Monitor. "They were probably determined before the project ever began."

The study's findings came as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo weighed whether to end a state moratorium on fracking. Cuomo, a Democrat, had delayed the release of a state health department study on the industry until after elections.

As a professor and researcher in the New York state capital, Carpenter says he hopes his study “does influence the debate.”

“There’s certainly economic reasons to explore fracking,” he says. “I’m not religiously opposed to fracking. While I prefer renewable fuels, we’re a long way from that. I just want it done safely. There’s been debate about how safe or unsafe it is, and our results say there is a problem.”

Source: US News

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Gas workers may be exposed to dangerous levels of benzene: Study

Gas well workers exposed to benzene
have a higher risk for blood
cancers like leukemia, researchers say.

A new study this month reveals unconventional oil and natural gas workers could be exposed to dangerous levels of benzene, putting them at a higher risk for blood cancers like leukemia.

Benzene is a known carcinogen that is present in fracking flowback water. It’s also found in gasoline, cigarette smoke and in chemical manufacturing.

As a known carcinogen, benzene exposures in the workplace are limited by federal regulations under OSHA. But some oil and gas production activities are exempt from those standards.

The National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) worked with industry to measure chemical exposures of workers who monitor flowback fluid at well sites in Colorado and Wyoming.

A summary of the peer-reviewed article was published online this month on a CDC website. In several cases benzene exposures were found to be above safe levels.

The study is unusual in that it did not simply rely on air samples. The researchers also took urine samples from workers, linking the exposure to absorption of the toxin in their bodies. One of the limits of the study includes the small sample size, only six sites in two states.

Dr. Bernard Goldstein from the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health says the study is the first of its kind. Goldstein did not contribute to the study’s research, but he has conducted his own research on benzene. And he’s treated patients exposed to the carcinogen.

“These workers are at higher risk for leukemia,” said Goldstein. “The longer, the more frequently they do this, the more likely they are to get leukemia particularly if the levels are high.”

The study looked at workers who use a gauge to measure the amount of flowback water that returns after a frack job is initiated. A spokeswoman for NIOSH says none of their studies draw any conclusions about exposures to nearby residents, but focus specifically on workers.

But Dr. Goldstein says it shows that there could be potential risks to residents as well.

“We’re not acting in a way to protect the public who are at high risk,” said Goldstein. “And we can’t even tell you who is at high risk. Yet we’re rushing ahead in a situation where all of the data are telling us that there are risks.”

Authors of the NIOSH benzene study said that more research with larger sample sizes should be done, especially since there was so much variation in the levels observed at different times and well sites.

The researchers also listed a number of recommendations for industry to take to reduce benzene levels on the job site. These include changing tank gauging procedures, training workers, limiting exposure times, carrying gas monitors, using respiratory and hand protection, and monitoring exposure levels.

Source: StateImpact

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A hospital disinfectant used for oil and gas production

A new product is currently being tested to
reduce the environmental impact of fracking.

Fracking seems to have more going against it than for it, but a South Carolina-based company is hoping the oil and gas industry will mitigate environmental damages and health concerns with its latest product, Excelyte.

Excelyte is an EPA-approved solution that addresses major controversies associated with fracking: pollution of groundwater with toxic chemicals, release of hydrogen sulfide that endangers oil field workers’ lives, and excess wastewater.

Integrated Environmental Technologies (IET) originally developed the solution as a final surface cleaner to eliminate hospital-acquired infections like tuberculosis, and then to prevent foodborne illnesses in food production.

Excelyte has been proven to be 99.9999% effective against HIV, H1N1, Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, among other bacteria and viruses. The solution’s main active ingredient is hypochlorous acid—a naturally occurring molecule in the human body that fights infection.

Healthcare to food production was a natural extension, but in searching for other applications where bacteria and viruses posed as a deadly threat, IET found an industry that’s desperate to improve its environmental impact: oil and gas.

Excelyte is currently being tested in Utah and New Mexico in its first foray into the oil and gas scene. David LaVance, CEO of IET, said several well-known companies are using the product, but would not reveal which ones.

A single frack job takes millions of gallons of water, with only 25-30% of that water recovered for reuse. IET claims that by mixing water with Excelyte’s bacteria and sulfur-fighting properties instead of toxic chemicals, twice as much wastewater can be recovered for reuse in fracking instead of using fresh water.

Hydrogen sulfide, a naturally occurring gas that can be released during oil and gas production, is the most frequent killer of oil field workers.

Excelyte is a hydrogen sulfide scavenger that combines chemically to hydrogen sulfide. The solution, which took over five years to develop into a substance fit for production in industrial quantities, is also designed to leave no trace on the environment.

“Our product persists for only 90 days and then it disintegrates,” said LaVance. “It’s not underground for very long and things go back to normal after that. So it’s a quick-acting biocide.”

Fracking fraught with controversy

Wherever fracking is involved, controversy has traditionally followed. Concerns range from polluting drinking water with toxic chemicals to setting earthquake records.

A community in the North Texan city of Denton, which is believed to hold one of the biggest natural gas reserves in the U.S., recently captured the attention of the energy industry with an attempt to ban hydraulic fracturing due to noise and toxic fumes from fracked wells in their backyard. But the city faces an uphill battle—the U.S. fracking market was valued at $26 billion in 2013 according to BCC Research.

In Utah, where Excelyte is in somewhat of a pilot testing mode, oil field companies are not required to obtain specific government approval to use the product, but are required to report chemical usage in the national database FracFocus.

Despite Excelyte’s impressive properties and promising applications, environmentalists aren’t likely to be overly excited about the product.

“Even if all of the chemicals used for fracking were perfectly benign (and they are not), the wastes still would be highly toxic, because the fluids bring numerous hazardous substances, including radioactive materials, to the surface,” said Deborah Goldberg, an attorney at environmentalist group Earthjustice.

“No one yet has found a way to dispose of all of the wastes without creating additional environmental risks.”

Though fracking is by no means a sustainable practice, it is projected to experience further growth well into 2018. If widely adopted, the use of Excelyte could save lives and save water in various processes.

Excelyte has been approved by the National Science Foundation (NSF), U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for use in food production; healthcare; veterinary practices; and the oil and gas industry.

The EPA declined to comment on the solution’s current or projected use in fracking activities.

The solution’s applications in reusing and recycling water would be of particular interest to West Coast states like Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and California, which have been facing a longstanding drought.

Source: Forbes

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Texas gas town wants to ban fracking

Oil and gas production has
fueled concerns over air
and water quality.

Natural gas money has been good to the Texas city of Denton: It has new parks, a new golf course and miles of grassy soccer fields. The business district is getting a makeover, and the airport is bustling, too.

For more than a decade, Denton has drawn its lifeblood from the huge gas reserves that lie beneath its streets. The gas fields have produced a billion dollars in mineral wealth and pumped more than $30 million into city bank accounts.

But this former farming center north of Dallas is considering a revolt. Unlike other communities that have embraced the lucrative drilling boom made possible by hydraulic fracturing, leaders here have temporarily halted all fracking as they consider an ordinance that could make theirs the first city in the state to permanently ban the practice.

If the city council rejects the ban, it will go to voters in November.

The college town has preserved much of its agricultural past. Historic downtown streets lined with 19th-century buildings open up to expansive fields with greenhouses and grazing cattle. But drilling is never far away, with some 275 active gas wells piercing the earth.

The willingness to reject fracking in the heart of oil and gas country reflects a broader shift in thinking.

In place of gas drills, some of Denton's 120,000 residents envision a future in which their city is known for environmentally friendly commerce and the nation's largest community garden.

They've even embarked on a campaign to persuade the maker of Sriracha hot sauce to expand its massive pepper-grinding business here — a prospect that appeals to the local farm-to-table culture.

Fracking involves blasting a mix of water, sand and an assortment of chemicals deep into underground rock formations to free oil and gas. The method has long stirred concerns about its effect on air and water quality, and whether it releases cancer-causing chemicals and causes small earthquakes.

Around the time fracking began in Denton, in 2000, the population started to swell, along with doubts about the drilling.

The Denton Drilling Awareness Group proposed tighter fracking rules and even won a series of temporary bans on new drilling permits.

At the same time, drillers defied city rules that required them to line wastewater pits and prohibited them from burning off, or "flaring," waste gas in residential areas.

"All that did was make people so fired up," McMullen said. "We had no choice" but to call for an outright ban, she said.

It also helped that only 2 percent of Denton's residents see royalties from the drilling, McMullen said, citing an analysis of city appraisal records on mineral property values between 2002 and 2013.

Scores of other cities and some states have considered similar bans, but few, if any, have Denton's close ties to the oil and gas industry. The issue could test whether any community in Texas — the nation's biggest oil and gas producer — can rebuff the industry and still thrive.

The debate comes as the city tries to wean its business community off fossil-fuel revenue. The Sriracha campaign is the highest-profile part of that effort. Another example is Tetra Points Fuels, which produces ethanol from expired soda and other sugary drinks that have been thrown away.

If the fracking ban is adopted, it's unclear whether the law would hold up in court. Cities in Colorado and California are being sued by drilling operators over similar bans, and owners of mineral rights here are already making their case for more drilling.

Ed Ireland, director of the Barnett Shale Energy Education Council, a pro-industry group, said Denton can't implement a ban because the city in 2000 began issuing drilling permits to operators "in perpetuity."

Land in Texas is split between the surface and the minerals below. In Denton, most of the mineral rights are held by estates and trusts outside Texas, according to a preliminary study by University of North Texas researchers who support the ban.

The Rayzor Co., which has one of the largest mineral holdings in Denton, stands to lose about $1.75 million a year if it's barred from fracking on its former cattle ranch. Chief executive Phillip Baker insists that fracking is the only process capable of retrieving gas from the mineral rights held by Rayzor and others.

Meanwhile, city councilman Kevin Roden has different hopes for the future. He launched the Sriracha campaign despite the company's problems in Irwindale, California, where residents complained about odors and fumes that burned their throats and eyes.

"There's a big distinction," Roden said he tells skeptics, "between the toxins emitted from oil and gas and the irritation that comes from chopping tons of onions and jalapenos.

Source: AP

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Family says drilling caused health problems

Those living near gas wells
say their health suffers.

Arguments are heating up in western Colorado and other areas over questions about human-health impacts from the region’s oil-and-gas industry.

In Texas, a jury recently awarded nearly $3 million to a family in Decatur, Texas, about 60 miles northwest of Dallas, over the family’s claims that nearby natural-gas extraction activities were making them sick.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, a Roaring Fork Valley doctor has conducted blood and urine tests on a family in Silt who also claim to have been made sick by nearby oil and gas activities.

In addition, Dr. John Hughes, of the Aspen Integrative Medicine group, who conducted the tests on the Silt family, confirmed on Thursday that testing is to be expanded and that he is seeking volunteers from among those living near natural-gas facilities in western Garfield County.

The oil-and-gas industry has long disputed claims that its activities make its residential neighbors sick, pointing to a lack of documentary proof of any such illnesses among those living near gas-drilling facilities.

And in Garfield County, air-quality-monitoring programs detected no violations of federal air-quality standards in 2013 other than “a slight increase in the amount of benzene detected in the air” compared with previous years, according to an April 21 article in the Glenwood Springs Post Independent.

Still, the Colorado Health Department in February issued new rules for statewide regulation of air pollution by the oil-and-gas industry, and an array of those living near the industry’s wells and other facilities continue to maintain that their air is being fouled by industry activities.

Peggy Tibbetts, of Silt, along with her daughter, Ema, and 12-year-old granddaughter, Hailey, had their blood and urine tested in early April by a nurse working for Hughes.

The testing was done at the family’s expense, Tibbetts noted, saying it was an expensive process undertaken only after the family started showing symptoms that included upper respiratory infections, swollen glands, sore throat, congestion, coughing, sneezing, earaches, shortness of breath and itchy, watery, burning eyes.

The results of those tests have indicated that the family has been contaminated by what are known as volatile organic compounds, substances that are commonly associated with oil- and gas-extraction activities, according to data made available to Aspen Journalism by Hughes’ office.

VOCs in the blood

The samples were sent for analysis to a lab at Colorado State University, which detected the presence of volatile organic compounds — ethylbenzene and zylene — in the blood samples, Hughes reported.

The lab also detected metabolites — chemicals left over by the human body’s metabolic processes — of several volatile organic compounds in the urine samples.

The metabolites, according to the results sent to Hughes, indicated that the patients had been exposed to benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene, which together make up the BTEX group of volatile organic compounds, which often are associated with natural-gas activities and some of which are known to cause illness in humans.

Studies have concluded that exposure to certain BTEX compounds can result in skin and sensory irritation, depression of the central nervous system and effects on the respiratory system. Prolonged exposure to these compounds, researchers say, also can harm the kidney, liver and blood systems.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, there is sufficient evidence from both human epidemiological and animal studies that benzene is a human carcinogen. Workers exposed to high levels of benzene in occupational settings were found to have an increase in leukemia.

The family of Bill and Beth Strudley, who formerly lived on Silt Mesa, in 2010 began becoming ill, experiencing nosebleeds, skin rashes and other ailments.

They blamed their health problems on nearby natural-gas-drilling activity and have filed a lawsuit against the Antero Resources energy company that currently is before the Colorado Supreme Court.

Upon hearing about the Texas jury award, Tibbetts remarked, “It’s great news.”

Industry representatives have maintained that the facts of the case, which was filed as a “nuisance” suit under specific state laws, did not warrant the award, and Aruba Petroleum is likely to appeal.

According to the Law360 website, industry legal experts are worried that, even if the jury’s award is overturned on appeal, the jury’s findings could “give encouragement to plaintiffs considering bringing suit” over similar circumstances as those in Decatur.

Source: Aspen Times. The article has been edited for length.

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Fracking health concerns continue

Air quality complaints and water contamination debated

Fracking sites can emit dangerous levels of
toxic substances over short periods of time.

There are more than 6,000 active gas wells in Pennsylvania. And every week, those drilling sites generate scores of complaints from the state’s residents, including many about terrible odors and contaminated water.

How the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection handles those complaints has worsened the already raw and angry divide between fearful residents and the state regulators charged with overseeing the burgeoning gas drilling industry.

For instance, the agency’s own manual for dealing with complaints is explicit about what to do if someone reports concerns about a noxious odor, but is not at that very moment experiencing the smell: “DO NOT REGISTER THE COMPLAINT.”

When a resident does report a real-time alarm about the air quality in or around their home, the agency typically has two weeks to conduct an investigation. If no odor is detected when investigators arrive on the scene, the case is closed.

“The time that it takes them to respond is something people are concerned about,” said Matt Walker, a community outreach director for the Clean Air Council in Pennsylvania, an environmental advocacy organization. Waiting a few days to two weeks to respond to odor complaints, he said, is “way too long.”

The concerns of residents are not likely to be eased by a study published in Reviews on Environmental Health, a peer reviewed journal.

The study, researchers say, confirms what they have long suspected about natural gas operations — that emission levels from these sites spike drastically over short periods of time, making it hard to assess the true threat to people’s health.

Researchers at the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project collected real-time readings of particulate matter — soot, dust and chemicals — in 14 homes in Washington County, a heavily drilled part of the state.

They found repeated episodes during which measures of contaminated dust rose sharply, to dangerous levels in the course of a day.

David Brown, the lead researcher on the study, said that a person in such circumstances could get what amounted to a full day’s exposure in half an hour.

The Pennsylvania Independent Oil and Gas Association declined to comment on the Environmental Health Project’s study but said that the oil and gas industry is “heavily regulated” and that the association’s member companies “strive to comply with numerous federal and state air quality related rules, regulations, and reporting requirements.”

Information provided by the DEP shows that between 2011 and 2014, the department received over 2,000 complaints about oil and natural gas operations. Water quality issues featured prominently in the list of complaints. The DEP also registered 110 of the complaints as odor issues.

John Quigley, a former director of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, said the need for greater transparency in the oversight of the fracking industry was real and urgent.

***

Gas drilling operations include several processes that release toxic chemicals into the air. The type and level of chemicals released varies from hour to hour depending on the type of activity taking place on the well pad.

Despite this, researchers and regulators seeking to assess the health threat of fracking operations have typically used measurement devices that capture air emissions over longer periods of time, often 24 hours.

These levels are then, in many cases, compared to the EPA’s National Ambient Air Quality Standards, which were created over 40 years ago at a time when large, 24-hour-a-day sources of pollution such as coal fire plants and steel mills were dominant.

“You can’t use 24-hour standards if the health effect occurs within a few minutes,” said Brown, the lead author of the study released Friday.

The question of whether episodic bursts of contaminated air from fracking could pose an unappreciated but real health menace was first explored in West Virginia in 2010.

West Virginia’s Department of Environmental Protection asked Michael McCawley, then a professor at West Virginia University’s Health Sciences Center, to study air emissions from fracking operations in the state. McCawley found the contaminants he detected at fracking sites fluctuated over a wide range.

Those findings mirror those in the Pennsylvania study published on Tuesday.

Research has shown that fracking operations can release an array of toxic chemicals — some carcinogenic, others capable, at significant enough levels, of causing serious neurological and respiratory damage. The worry, Brown says, is that these chemicals are attached to the microscopic dust particles that he detected and can reach the bloodstream after being inhaled.

McCawley and Brown say that the wide fluctuations that they’re picking up on are also attributable to operators not using the best available technology to limit possibly harmful emissions.

State and federal regulations, for instance, do not require operators to use equipment that would capture all emissions during drilling. Often, gases are vented or flared into the air. The regulations also don’t consider activities, like diesel truck traffic, that degrade air quality at the fracking site.

“The law requires best technology,” said McCawley, and the data, he says, is telling us that the gas drilling industry is “not working according to the strict definition of the law.”

Source: ProPublica. This article has been edited for length.

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Fracking chemicals need to be disclosed: Oklahoma

Oil and natural gas producers must report the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing

Fracking fluids include a variety of different
chemicals, which may be hazardous to health.

Operators of all oil and gas wells in the state must report the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing either directly to the website FracFocus.org or to the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which will add the information to the FracFocus database.

The new regulation is an extension of a rule that required operators of horizontal wells in the state to disclose the makeup of their fracking fluids beginning in 2013.

The rules initially targeted only horizontal wells because that category represents most of the larger operators and about three-quarters of the wells drilled in Oklahoma in 2013, Corporation Commissioner Dana Murphy said.

“It's important to go ahead and include all wells because we want to treat all operators the same, but you have to focus where most of the activity is first,” Murphy said.

Corporation Commission rules for many years have required operators to report the chemicals used in drilling operation only if the commission asked for it.

Many operators began reporting their fracking fluid voluntarily in 2011 when FracFocus.org became operational.

“The issue is the public's desire to get the information,” Murphy said. “The new rule gives them confidence that we're doing our jobs as regulators and the industry is doing its job as well.”

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of using water, sand and chemicals to shatter rock deep below the surface and allow oil and natural gas to more easily flow to the well.

Oil and natural gas companies have been using hydraulic fracturing in Oklahoma for more than 60 years, but the process has become much more popular — and controversial — over the past decade as fracking has been combined with horizontal drilling and other improvements to let companies produce oil and gas from shale and other dense rock.

Source: The Oklahoman

Protect yourself from vapor intrusion and poor IAQ

The chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing can escape and make their way into homes and businesses close to the well.

For extra protection, home and business owners can use an air cleaner with activated carbon and HEPA that can remove dangerous chemicals, vapors, particles and other contaminants from the ambient air.

Electrocorp has designed industrial-strength air purifiers for all kinds of spaces and occupations, providing cleaner and healthier air in a variety of workplaces.

Contact Electrocorp to find out which air cleaner would be best for you.

Toxic benzene leaking from gas fields

Leaks include benzene,
scientists say.

Air pollution from drilling operations much worse than thought, scientists say

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is warning about high methane and benzene gas levels escaping from oil and gas drilling operations in Colorado.

The scientists stumbled onto their discovery after setting up a routine tower-based monitoring system a few years ago.

When one tower recorded high levels of methane and benzene, they tried to find the source and traced it back to oil and gas production in northeastern Colorado’s Weld Country.

The gas operations were leaking double the amount of methane than previously thought and they also leaked other pollutants, including benzene, which is regulated by the EPA because of its toxicity.

The researchers were also concerned about other volatile organic compounds leaking out.

NOAA published its results in the Journal of Geophysical Research in late February.

Source: Summit Voice

Protect workers and residents from toxins near gas fields

The problem with high levels of gases and VOCs outdoors is that they may enter homes and buildings and affect workers and residents.

The best way to handle toxic compounds such as benzene is with activated carbon air filters, which can quickly and efficiently adsorb these gaseous pollutants.

Electrocorp offers industrial-strength air cleaners with the largest activated carbon filters and the most effective airflow and designs to help keep indoor air clean.

Electrocorp works with environmental consultants, government buyers and those looking to improve the indoor air quality in work spaces or buildings.

Contact Electrocorp for more information and options.
 

EPA proposes air pollution standards for 'fracking'

Toxins released in oil and gas production
can affect human health, authorities warn.

Cost-effective, flexible standards rely on operators' ability to capture and sell natural gas that currently escapes, threatens air quality

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on Thursday proposed standards to reduce harmful air pollution from oil and gas drilling operations. 

These proposed updated standards - which are being issued in response to a court order - would rely on cost-effective existing technologies to reduce emissions that contribute to smog pollution and can cause cancer while supporting the administration’s priority of continuing to expand safe and responsible domestic oil and gas production. 

 The standards would leverage operators' ability to capture and sell natural gas that currently escapes into the air, resulting in more efficient operations while reducing harmful emissions that can impact air quality in surrounding areas and nearby states.

"This administration has been clear that natural gas is a key component of our clean energy future, and the steps announced today will help ensure responsible production of this domestic energy source," said Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA's Office of Air and Radiation. 

"Reducing these emissions will help cut toxic pollution that can increase cancer risks and smog that can cause asthma attacks and premature death - all while giving these operators additional product to bring to market.”

The proposal would cut smog-forming volatile organic compound (VOC) emissions from several types of processes and equipment used in the oil and gas industry, including a 95 percent reduction in VOCs emitted during the completion of new and modified hydraulically fractured wells. 

This dramatic reduction would largely be accomplished by capturing natural gas that currently escapes to the air and making that gas available for sale through technologies and processes already in use by several companies and required in some states.

Natural gas production in the U.S. is growing, with more than 25,000 new and existing wells fractured or re-fractured each year. The VOC reductions in the proposal are expected to help reduce ozone nonattainment problems in many areas where oil and gas production occurs. 

In addition, the VOC reductions would yield a significant environmental benefit by reducing methane emissions from new and modified wells. Methane, the primary constituent of natural gas, is a potent greenhouse gas - more than 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. 

The proposed changes also would reduce cancer risks from emissions of several air toxics, including benzene.

EPA’s analysis of the proposed changes, which also include requirements for storage tanks and other equipment, show they are highly cost-effective, with a net savings to the industry of tens of millions of dollars annually from the value of natural gas that would no longer escape to the air. 

The proposal includes reviews of four air regulations for the oil and natural gas industry as required by the Clean Air Act: a new source performance standard for VOCs from equipment leaks at gas processing plants; a new source performance standard for sulfur dioxide emissions from gas processing plants; an air toxics standard for oil and natural gas production; and an air toxics standard for natural gas transmission and storage.

More information: http://epa.gov/airquality/oilandgas/

For improved indoor air quality and reduced exposure to VOCs, consider using an industrial-strength air cleaner with activated carbon and HEPA. Contact Electrocorp for more information.