Shale & Public Health: A conversation that's not fading away

The League of Women Voters of PA presented its third annual Shale & Public Health Conference in Pittsburgh on November 18, and what's abundantly clear is that the nexus of natural gas drilling and public health in Pennsylvania is a subject of continued interest and debate.

A packed room at the University of Pittsburgh's University Club heard a succession of speakers weigh in on impacts to public health from fracking activity in the Marcellus Shale region ranging from compromised air quality to poor outcomes in newborns.

Dr. Bruce Pitt, department chair, University
of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health

Dr. Bruce Pitt, department chair of the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health, is participating in leading research to better assess perinatal outcomes for mothers in natural gas drilling regions. He noted that there is a fetal basis for adult diseases that can be traced back to the environmental experiences of the mother. Dr. Pitt's current studies are focused on Washington, Butler and Westmoreland counties in southwestern PA -- a heavily-fracked region -- and are showing an increased incidence of babies that are small for gestational age as well as premature births. Dr. Pitt further noted that we need more studies over "an extended period of time" to better assess the public health impacts of natural gas development, and that a 30-year cycle of study makes sense to allow for a full life cycle of fracking plus longer-forming diseases such as certain cancers.

The Southwestern Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project's Dr. Jill Kriesky reiterated the need for a registry on the health impacts of fracking in PA. "We need a [fracking] health registry since researchers have determined that there are public health impacts from this activity," said Kriesky. "The goal is for Pennsylvania to have a robust health registry other states would want to replicate so we have this data across the country."

Dr. Brian Schwartz of Johns Hopkins University is the lead on the much-discussed Geisinger study of health impacts in the fracking regions of northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA). The Geisinger Health System, which has a large presence in NEPA, has an abundance of well-tracked data, making it a good candidate for study. "By using Geisinger data, we're studying the data of people in [fracking] impacted counties," noted Schwartz, adding that the National Institutes of Health is funding three studies to date that are looking at environmental issues and associated health outcomes. One study's key takeaway: An association between fracking and pre-term birth that is 40 percent higher, "conservatively," in fracking regions. Schwartz's continuing research includes studying asthma exacerbation in drilling regions (the disease's latency is short, making it an ideal vehicle to assess fracking impacts) as well as the study of certain cancers including leukemia and tumors.

Dr. Bernard Goldstein, emeritus dean and
professor, Pitt Graduate School of Public Health

Dr. Bernard Goldstein, the emeritus dean and professor of the Pitt Graduate School of Public Health, touched down in Pittsburgh the night before the conference after spending the fall teaching in Cologne, Germany. Consequently, he honed in on the differences in how fracking is viewed in the U.S. and the EU. While European countries with large shale reserves are keen to drill, their public is largely opposed. That's in stark counterpoint to the U.S., where it's unlikely that we'll completely abandon fossil fuels, thereby making it ever clearer that we have to get drilling right for the sake of public health and the environment. Dr. Goldstein continued: "We have not had the oversight we need in Pennsylvania [on shale gas development]. No one on Gov. Corbett's Marcellus Shale Advisory Committee had a public health background."

It was clear after a full day of speakers and breakout sessions that the conversation in PA on shale gas drilling is fluid. However, much more has been learned, especially about the harmful air pollution related to fracking that is leading to negative health outcomes for Pennsylvanians, including our most vulnerable populations.

Consequently, we should continue to push for the strongest possible rules to address air pollution from natural gas drilling including methane emissions from both new and existing sources. Absent strong protections and strict enforcement, we will not be able to ensure good public health and a safe environment.

Elaine Labalme is strategic campaigns director for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh. She tweets @NewGirlInTown.

New name, old problem, easy solution for oil and gas drillers

A series of just-published scientific studies are showing methane emissions from oil and gas operations in Texas' sprawling Barnett Shale region to be 50 percent higher than previous estimates by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The problem of methane emissions from this industry is well known, however, this newest research, undertaken by institutions including Duke University, Penn State and Princeton, is now using the term "functional super-emitter" to better classify sites with the greatest level of emissions relative to their production. There has long been concern that diffuse and unpredictable sources are a significant part of the problem, and this has now been credibly established.

What is also well known is that this is a problem with a ready solution: frequent leak detection and repair (LDAR). As noted by Steve Hamburg of the Environmental Defense Fund in a blog post this week, "Frequency is critical...monthly inspections resulted in reducing emissions by 80 percent, while annual inspections reduced emissions by less than half."

The technology is readily available today to cut methane emissions by over 40 percent over five years for a penny per thousand feet of produced gas. However, most companies are not availing themselves of this easy fix.

Here in Pennsylvania, industry lobbyists are pleading for voluntary standards while bemoaning the perceived "operational disruption" of asking drillers to capture and sell more of their own product since methane is the main component of natural gas.

Colorado is currently the only state in the nation that directly regulates methane emissions from oil and gas operations, and insists on frequent LDAR. Pennsylvania, as a longtime oil and gas producing state and ground zero for the burgeoning Marcellus Shale play, clearly needs to follow Colorado's lead. The science is becoming ever clearer -- it is time to act.

Elaine Labalme is Strategic Campaigns Director for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh.

Drexel University researchers: Methane emissions rising in PA's Marcellus Shale region

On May 19, a team of researchers from Drexel University in Philadelphia released findings of a two-month mobile air quality monitoring campaign in the southwest and northeast parts of Pennsylvania where shale gas drilling is taking place. Among the study's more significant findings is that methane emissions were higher than reported in previous studies.

The Drexel team employed a mobile laboratory with sampling instrumentation affixed to the outside and computers inside. They obtained measurements downwind of each drilling region as they did not have direct access to the sites. Measurements were obtained around well pads and compressor stations.

Photo credit: WCN 24/7 via Flickr Creative Commons

This study adds to the growing body of evidence that methane, a potent greenhouse gas with warming potential 84 times greater than carbon in the first 20 years after its release, is leaking into the atmosphere at alarming rates. As temperatures rise, we experience the accelerated formation of ground-level ozone, or smog, that leads to increased asthma attacks and lung and heart disease. Absent action, the specter of increased methane emissions could quickly undo any perceived benefits of a coal-to-gas switch.

Pennsylvania must move quickly to directly regulate methane emissions from natural gas operations. The Drexel study once again makes clear that voluntary efforts aren't working. The time to act is now.

Elaine Labalme is Strategic Campaigns Director for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh. She tweets @NewGirlInTown.

Fly-by: An aerial snapshot of methane emissions

As with so many scientific studies, a preponderance of evidence over a period of time tends to prove a point. That's the lens through which we should assess the study of methane emissions from natural gas drilling operations.

A recent aerial study of three drilling regions in the U.S. including the Marcellus Shale found, based on a single day of data, that methane emissions were at the low end of what other research has suggested. However, notes Mark Brownstein of the Environmental Defense Fund, it's not cause for celebration just yet as more robust studies over longer periods of time suggest methane emissions are often higher than previous estimates.


"EDF’s own studies – including two released last week looking at the transmission and storage and gathering and processing sectors of the oil and gas industry – have repeatedly shown that random leaks and malfunctions are a major source of emissions," said Brownstein. "Because these events are random, a one-day overflight will not give a full picture of emissions coming from a basin over a day, a month, or a year. What is needed is regular and ongoing monitoring."


The evidence once again speaks to the need for ongoing leak detection and repair programs like those implemented in Colorado, Ohio and Wyoming, and why Pennsylvania must show leadership by enacting strong methane regulations.

"Methane has the potential to undermine the climate benefits natural gas provides over other fossil fuels," says Brownstein. And he's right. Pennsylvania cannot afford to wait.

Elaine Labalme is director of communications for PennFuture as is based in Pittsburgh. She tweets @NewGirlInTown.

PA Department of Health employees silenced on drilling complaints?

A report issued by StateImpact last week revealed that Pennsylvania Department of Health employees were sent a list of fracking-related buzzwords as part of official guidance for how to handle complaints to the department -- and were told not to personally return calls from people who used words on the list. Words and phrases singled out for special treatment included: drilling, fracking, Marcellus Shale, skin rash, and cancer cluster:

One veteran employee says she was instructed not to return phone calls from residents who expressed health concerns about natural gas development.

“We were absolutely not allowed to talk to them,” said Tammi Stuck, who worked as a community health nurse in Fayette County for nearly 36 years.

Another retired employee, Marshall P. Deasy III, confirmed that.

Deasy, a former program specialist with the Bureau of Epidemiology, said the department also began requiring field staff to get permission to attend any meetings outside the department. This happened, he said, after an agency consultant made comments about drilling at a community meeting.

In the more than 20 years he worked for the department, Deasy said, “community health wasn’t told to be silent on any other topic that I can think of.”

The Corbett administration initially denied that such a list existed:

The Health Department initially denied the existence of both the drilling “buzzwords” list and the employee permission form. A spokeswoman called the two retired employees’ claims “erroneous.”

The department later acknowledged the existence of the documents, but said these policies were meant to guide–not silence–employees in responding to complaints. 

Some, including Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Daily News, are calling for an investigation by lawmakers in Harrisburg.

Whatever happened here, it's clear that the we haven't heard the last on this. We need to know why the natural gas industry was seemingly singled out for special treatment -- by a department tasked with protecting public health. 

Stay tuned. 

Andrew Sharp is PennFuture's director of outreach and is based in Philadelphia. He tweets at @RexBainbridge.