There has been an explosion in domestic natural gas drilling. The number of wells being drilled has doubled in ten years to over 34,000. The new drilling is having an adverse impact on humans living near the operations which are reaching beyond isolated rural communities into heavily populated areas of Pennsylvania, Louisiana, Colorado, and even the suburbs of Fort Worth. Besides
fouled water from fracking, complaints of bad odors and health effects have increased. The EPA has doubled its estimates of the amount of methane gas leaked from drilling equipment. In one ambient air survey conducted in Garfield County, Colorado in 2008 at the request of county officials, 14 sites were monitored. Fifteen contaminants including carcinogens such as benzene, and tetrachloroethene were detected at above normal amounts but below thresholds for unacceptable cancer risk. The
report recommended that the concentrations warranted "careful evaluation and exposure monitoring" because residents of the affected areas are repeatedly exposed. Epidemeology in this area is difficult since effects are transitory and can be caused by a number of environmental or individual health conditions. Regulatory exemptions granted the industry make data collection difficult. Trade secrecy and
lack of cooperation also poses problems.
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| Battlement Mesa, CO |
Colorado's Oil & Gas Conservation Commission received over four hundred complaints related to drilling operations between 2006 and 2008. The state of Colorado monitored air quality in Garfield County, the site of intense drilling operations, without finding any pollution that exceeded standards. Yet
symptoms experienced by residents ranged from intense fatigue, burning eyes, severe headaches, numbness in extremities, and painful skin blisters to a rare adrenal tumor. In the last case a drilling company using a suspected chemical in its fracking fluid settled with the individual for a multi-million dollar amount. Colorado fined the company for failing to contain its waste fluids properly. When asked by residents to study the health impacts of more drilling on Battlement Messa, the county decided to
fund another study in 2010 by the Colorado School of Public Health focused on a small defined area with a plan to collect long term data once drilling began. An inconvenient conclusion was reached in the draft report released in February, 2011. The emissions from drilling would likely be high enough to cause disease including birth defects, neurological and respiratory problems, and cancer in the community. As one county commissioner phrased it things
"got political" fast. The county commission
decided not to extend the research contract after a commissioner seen to be a supporter of more health research was defeated for re-election. So a final report was never made. Drilling companies informed state environment officials they would not cooperate with the proposed long-term data collection unless the draft authors were replaced and the research started over. The state abandoned its application for federal funding of the research. A
class action suit was filed against Antero Resources this month alleging that the company's gas drilling in Battlement Mesa threaten the health of 5,000 residents of the unincorporated retirement community near Parachute in western Garfield County.