Health Problems Arise from Natural Gas Development & Utilization

We are Having Increasing Health Problems with Natural Gas

Essay by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor and Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV

Due to environmental problems, coal is being unceremoniously dumped.  Coal is a solid, and contains many of the elements found in the swamp plants that it came from, notably sulfur and heavy metals like mercury, iron, manganese, and vanadium.  

To fill the need here comes natural gas.  Natural gas emissions will surpass coal emissions for the first time this year, and by some ten percent.  Although gas is over advertised as the “bridge fuel to the future” because it emits only 57 percent as much carbon dioxide, it still will be the “winner” in the pollutant race this year.

 So many coal plants have been retired before they had to be, that the coal industry is suffering bankruptcies, and consequent loss of capital, and the mining force is seriously inconvenienced by the abrupt layoffs with no other job prospects in sight in the rural areas where mining is done.

 The gas industry is having a rebirth with a method known as “fracking.”  Mining was a notorious vehicle for destroying land and water, especially in its later phase of strip mining. But the new gas industry has huge requirements for water. And, the consequent production of waste water plus the surface clearing for well pads, access roads and pipelines is far worse for the surface in terms of forest and farm land destroyed and production of crops, timber and recreation eliminated than coal has been. 

Also because of the exotic chemicals needed to drill, anti-rust, anti-bacterial, water “slickners,” detergents and more.  And because of the produced water which brings up from the depths radioactivity, barium, and other serious pollutants.

The methane is itself a greenhouse gas, many times more potent than carbon dioxide.  It leaks in many places that produce natural gas.  Originally the industry was unaware of it or indifferent.  One spot is near where Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Nevada come together, called the “four corners.” It was first detected by airplanes flying at normal altitude, becoming famous as a “hot spot.”  It has since been resolved into 250 separate sources.  The public has been assured the companies are “working on it.”

The leaks occur in cities, where the infrastructure is old, in the country  where fracking occurs, along the numerous large pipes carrying gas to market, at pump stations and valves. and much of the older gas production infrastructure is seriously loosing gas.  Outdoorsmen and women know the familiar odor well.

Along with the natural gas boom has come an increase in research on health effects, too.  There are dozens of articles describing the research and public health effects of fracking.

Pennsylvania and Colorado have many wells and compressor stations and they have been the object of a great deal of the research.  A Johns Hopkins study particularly has attracted many writers.  It seems clear that asthma (particularly in children), migraines, nasal and  sinus problems and fatigue are a common result of fracking gases.

 A second particularly interesting commentary in Environmental Health Perspectives, Frederica Perera, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH), of Columbia University, says ” fossil fuel combustion and associated air pollution and carbon dioxide (CO2) as the root cause of much of the ill health of children today. Because of their inherent biological vulnerability, children now bear a disproportionate burden of disease from both pollution and climate change.”  “The single most important action we can take for our children and their future is to cure our addiction to fossil fuels,” Perera said.

 Articles identifying fracking as the source of increased asthma attacks have appeared in Medical Express and in U. S. A. Today as well as Science Daily News.

There is a “Threat Map” which highlights the worst of oil and gas pollution.

And there is a map that pinpoints the most unhealthy cities. One University of Pittsburgh study conducted in Washington, Westmoreland, and Butler counties concluded that children born close to dense oil and gas drilling areas have an increased risk of low birth weights. A University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University study, also based on Pennsylvania data, showed that people who live near natural gas infrastructure have higher rates of hospitalization, particularly for cardiovascular disease.

A new analysis by two environmental groups suggests Texas will lead the nation in health problems tied to ozone-forming pollutants from the oil and gas industry by 2025, the Texas Tribune reports.

So science is showing that drilling and fracking for natural gas and oil are not a good answer to energy needs. Real people need to use the full force of political persuasion to advance the successor industries, that is  the renewable energy and energy efficiency, including proper insulation. We need to shut off the billions of dollars now spent by governments to subsidize the fossil fuel industry, along with the legal loopholes which make them less accountable for the effect of what they do.

See also:  www.FrackCheckWV.net

Tagged as: drilling, environmental impacts, explosions, fires, flares, fracking, health issues, leaks, marcellus shale, natural gas, pipelines, public health, vents