Environmental advocates weight in on state DOH, Pitt fracking study

Living close to fracking sites can be linked to a host of adverse health effects, according to a three-year-long environmental study released by the University of Pittsburgh and the Pennsylvania Department of Health.

For many environmental advocates, the news comes as no surprise.

The PA Health and Environment studies, presented at a public meeting in Washington County last week, look at records of harmful health impacts and how they are correlated with proximity to fracking sites.

The studies focused on childhood cancers, asthma impacts and birth conditions. Analysis was conducted from 2021 to 2023 using data that ranged from 1990 to 2020, depending on the study.

According to the findings, people with asthma who live close to wells during their production phase are more likely to have asthma attacks or have their asthma get worse. Children living within a mile of wells had 5 to 7 times higher chances of developing lymphoma, a rare childhood cancer, and infants born to mothers who lived near wells in the production phase were an ounce smaller at birth on average.

“Our main job was essentially to put the scientific facts out there in the most basic way that we can,” said Dr. James Fabisiak, associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, who was one of the lead presenters of the study.

“I think the findings are the findings. People can take them to their health care professionals and discuss them with their health care professionals.”

For environmental advocates, the study is important in raising awareness, but it isn’t a surprise. The results fit into existing research about the adverse impacts of fracking, said Alison Steele, executive director of the Environmental Health Project.

“We have years and years of research pointing to health harms associated with unconventional natural gas (fracking),” Steele said. “What we’ve been able to see in looking at a wealth of studies over the years is a clearer and clearer picture with every additional study that comes out.”

Steele pointed out that observational studies like the PA Health and Environment Studies do not cover all the bases of every potential corner of research but can contribute to a larger breadth of knowledge. For instance, the study did not include interviews with any families who were impacted.

“If you are just looking at the studies and trying to demonstrate some kind of causation, and trying to say that this is the end-all-be-all of the situation, that is not what these studies are designed to do,” she said. “I don’t think there was any revolutionary new information shared (Tuesday.) I don’t think there was anything surprising in the findings. All of the findings are consistent with things we have already seen in years of peer-reviewed epidemiological studies.”

Local groups weigh in

Stacey Magda, community organizer at the Mountain Watershed Association, a nonprofit that works to protect, preserve and restore the Youghiogheny River watershed and its broader communities, said people who live close to fracking have understood the results of the study for a long time.

“What was really a critical step was for our state to acknowledge this and get their own dataset,” she said. “For them to actually have a state-funded study that does show there are adverse impacts to the fracking industry in Southwestern Pennsylvania is very enormous, but it can’t stop here.”

Making sure that the results of the study are acted upon and not buried is essential, she said. She also hopes additional studies are conducted to fill in gaps in knowledge.

“We will continue to push and organize and hold Pennsylvania and the industry accountable,” she said. “We want to make (the study) readily available and ensure it is common knowledge that fracking affects our health, environment and quality of life.”

Having some suspicions confirmed by the study brings on complex emotions for residents who live near fracking, said Heaven Sensky, organizing director with the Center for Coalfield Justice.

“It’s a very strange place to sit in hearing these results. We’re all feeling frightened, frustrated and grateful, sort of all at once,” said “When we get feedback, they’re showing higher rates of lymphoma, asthma and low birth weights — those aren’t things we want to hear, but they’re things that we already know as community members.”

She described the study as a “glimpse of the problem,” and would have liked to see an expansion of the research in additional directions, such as looking at how close buildings other than homes are to fracking sites.

“Washington County is the most heavily fracked county in the state,” she said. “I can’t think of a school anywhere in my community that is further than a mile from a well pad. They are everywhere. You can imagine our frustration when we’re being told that, literally, all of our children are at five to seven times greater risk of developing lymphoma.”

She hopes the state does not get bogged down in doing more studies that risk becoming obsolete before making changes.

“If industry is going to operate here, we deserve to know that it’s a safe place to live,” Sensky said. “We’re working together to advocate to the state that it’s time to take action. We know enough.”

Next steps

In a statement, Acting State Secretary of Health Dr. Debra Bogen said the Shapiro administration is committed to protecting Pennsylvanians’ health and safety.

“We are already working to develop concrete plans to address the potential health risks identified in these studies and ensure every concern is heard,” she said.

The statement also noted the Department of Health plans to provide education and resources to healthcare providers in the impacted regions — including improving its environmental health complaint portal online — continuing to monitor air quality, cancer incidence and environmental exposures and reviewing recent studies.

The Department of Environmental Protection said in the statement that it would support legislation to expand setback distances from wells and other drilling infrastructure to homes and other buildings and to create separate, more significant setbacks for locations like schools, hospitals and long-term care and child care facilities.

It also noted that it would examine the possibility of making new rules to allow the DEP to approve the specific layouts of well pad structures.

The DEP will also expand its team of experts on fracking and toxicology and focus on best practices for fracking operators to minimize risk. It also plans to implement a new criminal referral protocol and enforcement strategy.

For Magda, the Department of Health’s plan to offer “monthly, free continuing medical educational opportunities for local health care providers, including opportunities to learn how to better identify and treat people with environmental exposures” this autumn is an urgent priority.

“We need to train pediatricians, doctors, specialists and clinics all throughout the health networks in Southwestern Pennsylvania, so our medical teams know how to respond,” Magda said. “We cannot last another year, another five years, another 15 years, the way we have been, with this not being directly addressed. The state really needs to launch a plan very soon to get into schools, doctors’ offices, and the health systems.”

Steele noted while studies like this one are important, they’re not a substitute for action.

“There’s value in continuing to do research, but one of the problems we’ve seen over the years is there ‘s a tendency to say we need to do more research before we can take action, and that is unacceptable,” she said. “The field of public health is designed to prevent harm, which means acting swiftly on the information available at the time.”

The road ahead

Fabisiak couldn’t confirm whether there would be additional research on fracking from the Pitt team just yet, but said the group had built up expertise on the topic through the study.

“Spending a large amount of our time and effort for two to three years has sort of built a certain expertise within the team that might be prepared to keep doing research in this particular direction,” he said. “That obviously depends on availability of funding and other resources that would eventually allow us to do that.”

Conducting the study was a lesson for the team, he said, in how to interact with and incorporate the concerns and lived experiences of residents.

“This is a first lesson in a way of how important it is to listen to community concerns about developing and posing this specific research question,” he said. “Rather than us sitting here in the university thinking of what those questions might be, it might be more beneficial to get some of that community input to help us make those decisions.”

Moving forward, Magda recommended people voice their concerns and talk about fracking with one another.

“The most important thing for people to do, for residents and communities to do, is to continue to pay attention and to talk to each other,” she said. “In most households in Pennsylvania, I believe fracking is a common word, and people need to talk about what their concerns are. That needs to be a documented and common practice in every household in Pennsylvania where fracking is occurring.”