Groundbreaking Study Finds Cancer-Causing Air Pollution Near Fracking Sites

[KamaAina]

Who would have thought?

http://ecowatch.com/2014/10/30/cancer-causing-air-pollution-fracking/

The air quality near fracking sites and other gas and oil operations may not be safe to breathe, according to a new study Air Concentrations of Volatile Compounds Near Oil and Gas Production: A Community-Based Exploratory Study, published today in the journal Environmental Health.

“Horizontal drilling, hydraulic fracturing, and other drilling and well stimulation technologies are now used widely in the United States and increasingly in other countries,” the report stated. “They enable increases in oil and gas production, but there has been inadequate attention to human health impacts.”

And the analysis of the air samples gathered in Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wyoming near oil and gas facilities, including fracking sites, found that those impacts could be considerable. They found numerous toxic chemicals that can cause a host of health problems including asthma, headaches and birth defects—in some cases in amounts hundreds of times higher than what is considered safe. It found levels of eight volatile chemicals that exceeded federal guidelines for health-based risk, especially benzene, formaldehyde and hydrogen sulfate.

The study cites five reasons why the health impacts of oil and gas extraction and processing operations haven’t been more widely studied: more focus on threats to water supplies, limited state air quality monitoring networks, a still-evolving understanding of how certain oil and gas production processes contribute to air quality, variations in emissions and their concentrations, and research that overlooks impacts of importance to residents.

[madamesilverspurs]

1. Our all-republican

city council and county commission couldn't care less. We have tried and tried and tried to make them understand that all that fracking money is not more important than the health of the population. But the lesson that has been driven home, most painfully in the just past election, is that our voices are mere whispers against the hyper-volume megaphone that is big money. Our mayor, whose main fundraiser was hosted by a fracking company, literally rolls his eyes at us when we bring new information. At one memorable council meeting each councilor was presented with several hundred pages of peer reviewed studies and other evidence; the mayor glanced at that stack of paper and moved it aside as he declared, "It's irrelevant."

But we keep trying, even though it irritates the mayor. You never know, maybe one day it might get through to him that sick people would rather be healthy than rich.

[malokvale77]

2. What?

The State of Texas officials have assured me that fracking is not only safe but real good for me.

For those that don't get it: This post is dripping in