EPA considers expanding fracturing study to air quality

[deminks]

http://www.gjsentinel.com/news/articles/epa_considers_expanding_fractu/

Recently retired Environmental Protection Agency environmental engineer Weston Wilson is best known for criticizing his employer’s 2004 finding that hydraulic fracturing poses little or no risk to domestic groundwater.

Now, the Denver EPA whistleblower is encouraged by the agency’s interest in studying the natural gas development procedure’s potential impacts on air quality as well.

“I’m proud of EPA now,” not just for undertaking the study, but indicating it may expand the study’s reach beyond water, Wilson said.

His position puts him at odds with the oil and gas industry. At a Denver EPA meeting this summer, several industry representatives argued the study should be limited, as directed by a congressional committee, to the relationship between fracturing and groundwater. “And certainly not air quality,” as Kathleen Sgamma of the Western Energy Alliance put it.

(snip)

He said that study showed “mixed results” about what dangers gas development might present, but one disturbing finding involves benzene. The study said airborne benzene could exceed acceptable non-cancer health-risk levels within 250 meters downwind of well-flowback operations that don’t include gas recovery. It recommended use of “green” well completions to reduce this risk.

The report said neurotoxicity, depressed bone-marrow function, an impaired immune system and blood disorders are among the non-cancer risks of benzene, which also is a carcinogen.

“If that is an effect of oil and gas drilling, of fracking, it’s systemic, it’s endemic,” Wilson said. “It’s evaporating from the reserve pits and the condensate tanks. It’s not as if the current state of the art protects the public health from those volatile organics.”

(end snip)