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By Scott Smith, Communications Coordinator
Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is considering a rule regulating methane and volatile organic compound (VOC) pollution at existing source oil and gas sites across the state. The rule could have a significant impact on protecting our air quality, our climate, and our health. Unfortunately, the draft rule includes a loophole for low-producing wells that would allow them to continue polluting our communities. |
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In Pennsylvania, these low-producing wells are responsible for about half of all methane pollution - meaning they have a huge impact on our health. Methane is the primary component of gas, the extraction and production of which has risen dramatically in the U.S. - especially in Pennsylvania - over the last decade. Pollution from increased drilling poses numerous health risks among our state’s children, pregnant women, and other vulnerable populations. Here are just a few alarming statistics about methane:
- 1.5 million Pennsylvanians live within half a mile of oil and gas facilities, exposing them to toxins. And, you don’t have to live close to a gas well to experience the health impacts.
- 945,000 adults and 236,000 kids in Pennsylvania suffer from asthma. Pollution from the gas industry compounds air quality problems, increasing smog, and resulting in tens of thousands of additional asthma attacks each year.
- 25 percent - Methane is responsible for a quarter of the human-produced warming we are experiencing today, resulting in more extreme weather events such as flooding and hotter, longer summers. Rising temperatures make smog worse too, adding to asthma attacks while also contributing to heat-related deaths.
If You Live Near Oil & Gas Development
If you live close to oil and gas development – a well, a pipeline, a compressor station, an ethane plastics plant – you have a higher risk of experiencing poor health outcomes than if you lived elsewhere. Along with methane, oil and gas development releases measurable levels of toxic compounds, such as benzene, arsenic, formaldehyde, lead, and mercury. Oil and gas facilities also emit fine and ultrafine particulate matter.
These pollutants can raise your risk of experiencing all sorts of health issues, like skin rashes, headaches, and fatigue, to name a few. Long-term exposure to these pollutants can damage your heart, liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. Particulates can get into your lungs when you breathe and cause or worsen respiratory issues like asthma or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Exposure to pollution may also put you at a higher risk of developing more severe symptoms from infectious lung diseases, like COVID-19.
These pollutants can raise your risk of experiencing all sorts of health issues, like skin rashes, headaches, and fatigue, to name a few. Long-term exposure to these pollutants can damage your heart, liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. Particulates can get into your lungs when you breathe and cause or worsen respiratory issues like asthma or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). Exposure to pollution may also put you at a higher risk of developing more severe symptoms from infectious lung diseases, like COVID-19.
Methane Hurts Your Health and Your Planet
While methane itself may not be directly affecting your health today, methane that escapes into the atmosphere can wreak havoc on public health well into the future. Methane is a significant contributor to climate change and is over 84 times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere over the first two decades than it’s well-known cousin, carbon dioxide.
Higher levels of methane cause a more rapid change in the climate, resulting in more floods, fires, intense storms, and rapid beach erosion. Higher temperatures also make ozone (smog) worse and increase heat-related deaths. They impact food and water supplies and lead to an increase in vector-borne diseases from mosquitoes and ticks, such as West Nile Virus and Lyme Disease.
All of these environmental outcomes result in a public health crisis that stresses our families and communities and taxes our health care workers and emergency responders.
Higher levels of methane cause a more rapid change in the climate, resulting in more floods, fires, intense storms, and rapid beach erosion. Higher temperatures also make ozone (smog) worse and increase heat-related deaths. They impact food and water supplies and lead to an increase in vector-borne diseases from mosquitoes and ticks, such as West Nile Virus and Lyme Disease.
All of these environmental outcomes result in a public health crisis that stresses our families and communities and taxes our health care workers and emergency responders.