Fracking can pollute the air around natural gas well sites, a three-year study in Garfield County has shown.
Almost immediately after a news report on the study was posted on the front page of the Denver Post website, the headline disappeared from view, crowded out by the revelation that Peyton Manning had decided to join the Broncos. That news, however exciting it might be to Colorado football fans, has very little bearing on their everyday lives and even less on their health and safety. The risks of fracking may.
The research, performed by the University of Colorado-Denver School of Public Health, detected chemicals, including trimethylbenzenes, aliaphatic hydrocarbons, and xylenes, as far as half a mile from a drilling site. Those chemicals can have neurological and respiratory effects, the researchers said. The period of greatest risk is short, corresponding to the drilling operation, but the disposal of drilling waste poses longer-term risks.
Last summer, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed regulations designed to reduce the release of smog- and soot-forming pollutants at drilling sites, where the ozone level sometimes grows worse than that in Los Angeles. In Texas, the agency also had detected airborne benzene associated with the natural gas industrys drilling, production, treating and pipeline facilities.; this new data supports a related push to better contain the chemicals used in the hydraulic fracturing process.
The study also joins a body of data that includes EPA research linking fracking to groundwater contamination in Wyoming.
Although many well sites have not been studied, its fair to note that chemical pollution was not found consistently among those that have. That suggests two possibilities: that fracking in some areas may pose less of a pollution risk than in places with different geological characteristics, and that better practices could prevent pollution. The natural gas industry has voluntarily taken steps to reduce pollution, an acknowledgement both that it exists and that it is easier to prevent than to clean up.
The most alarming aspect of the two related problems air and groundwater contamination is that they cross boundaries. They can harm neighbors who dont profit at all from the gas boom, just because they happen to be downwind or downstream, and those neighbors may not know when theyre most at risk. Their right to use their property as they wish is also compromised.
Geological resource extraction in the West has always been a mixed blessing. From the uranium tailings of Moab to contaminated water and soils in the high mountains, the legacy of pollution has remained long after the good jobs departed. Natural gas promises more good jobs in places where they are badly needed, and energy workers can make up their own minds about the risks involved if their potential employers are honest in revealing them, which wasnt the case during the uranium boom.
Entire communities benefit from the economic boost that energy development brings. Its fair that they bear some of the costs, but not when those costs involve higher risks of cancer and respiratory illnesses, not when the risks are known in advance, and not when they can be reduced.
Pollution must be factored into the costs of all kinds of energy: heating fuel, vehicle fuel, and electricity from all sources. Otherwise, the benefits are likely to go in one direction while some of the costs go elsewhere.
