PA Researchers ask: Will increased family income from gas leasing benefit child-wellbeing?

A couple days ago Penn State University announced that a team of sociology researchers received a grant to study family income and well-being of children in the Marcellus shale region of Pennsylvania and New York. The burning question: is there a difference in the quality of life and academic achievement in children growing up in families that receive gas drilling money compared with those in the same area who receive no money?

According to PSU, the project is supported by a $150,000 grant from the Russell Sage Foundation. Molly Martin, associate professor of sociology and demography at Penn State, is leading the team of researchers who plan to review and analyze data from Pennsylvania and New York school districts located above the Marcellus Shale region. Using Geographic Information Analysis (GIS), they will be able to merge annual maps of Marcellus Shale wells and gas pipelines and locate them within school district boundaries. They will be able to study individual data in various categories by school district, analyzing differences in such things as health outcomes, academic achievement, obesity, teen pregnancy, high school graduation and juvenile delinquency.  

You would think this sort of research – the “do kids do better in families with more money” – has already been done. And you’d be right. In the 2002 Winter/Spring issue of the journal Children and Welfare Reform, Sheila Zedlweski writes, “It is well documented that children in families with greater incomes do better across a wide range of indicators. Economically secure children tend to be healthier and do better in school; they are less likely to be involved in criminal behavior and are more likely to graduate from high school and to earn higher incomes as adults. In contrast, poorer children tend to have fewer opportunities for success.”

Nearly a dozen years later Duncan, et al revisit the issue in the Sept. 2011 issue of Dev Psychol (vol. 47, no. 5). After reviewing the literature and data they suggest that “…a $1,000 increase in annual income increases young children's achievement by 5%–6% of a standard deviation. As such, our results suggest that family income has a policy-relevant, positive impact on the eventual school achievement of preschool children.” Their study, “Does Money Matter?”  – along with loads of links to other similar studies – is posted here in the US National Library of Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

So do we really need one more study about the effect of income on children’s wellbeing? Dr. Martin she sees this as a “rare opportunity for a natural experiment,” as she told the PSU reporter. “Some families will receive a significant number of royalty checks while others will not,” she said, “because of two factors – one determined by a geological formation created over 300 million years ago (Marcellus Shale) and the other by government policies decided in Harrisburg, PA and Albany, NY.

A more interesting question might be whether the wealth created for a few through gas royalties creates income inequality that affects the well-being of children in those communities.

Bad Air, Bad Water, Bad Health

Fracking a well near home in PA

Yesterday NY State Senator David Carlucci told the press that the state senate is considering a delay of fracking until some health studies are complete. He told AP reporter Michael Gormley, "We have to put science first; we have to put the health of New Yorkers first."

Meanwhile:

• NY  Dept. of Health Commissioner Dr. Nirav Shah is still working on the health review that should determine whether the final draft SGEIS (Supplemental Generic Environmental Impact Statement) adequately identifies potential public health impacts of fracking;
• Geisinger Health System in PA is studying the impact of Marcellus shale gas mining on health;
• DEP investigators have found two new cases in Dimock, where methane concentrations in private water wells pose an explosion hazard.

But while the NY legislators await results from those studies, there is a wealth of data indicating that gas drilling is not healthy for children and other living things. Especially living things that depend on breathing.

Consider: Pennsylvania recently completed an air pollution study. The overall results weren’t bad. But pollution from shale gas activity has brought pollution to areas that were previously unpolluted.

This reflects what’s been happening in rural areas out west. Vernal, UT saw high levels of ozone and other pollutants resulting from gas drilling. And last July, Sublette County and portions of Lincoln County WY were declared to be in marginal “non-attainment for ozone” under the Clean Air Act. That means they exceeded the federal 8-hour average threshold of 75 parts per billion (ppb), a standard meant to protect human health.

Certainly these impacts aren’t going to hit everyone equally. “Healthy” people in Fort Worth, TX for example may not feel any ill effects, but susceptible populations – children, elderly, people with chronic respiratory and/or cardiac problems – will feel the impacts. And, as has happened in a number of cases, one neighbor’s well may be contaminated while another well escapes harm – at least for a while.

As a wise and compassionate teacher reminded those who were blessed: care for the least of these (who are not so blessed)… for whatever you do for them, you do for me.

What is Act 13, Anyway?

Why is everyone in Pennsylvania so obsessed with "Act 13? What is it, anyway? 

You can find out - and learn more about the recent court decisions next week. On Thursday, August 9 Penn State Extension will be hosting a special webinar called “A Blow to Act 13?: The Impact of the Commonwealth Court’s Decision on Local Zoning and Natural Gas Development in Pennsylvania”. the webinar goes from 1 - 2 pm and us open to the public though, noted Penn State Ext, it will "be of special interest to municipal officials and attorneys".

Last week a Pennsylvania appellate court rejected the Pennsylvania legislature’s pre-emption of significant elements of local zoning under Act 13. The ruling has been appealed to the State Supreme Court, but municipal officials and others are uncertain about the immediate impact of the decision.  Attorney Steve Saunders with Saunders Law LLC in Scranton PA will look at traditional zoning in Pennsylvania and oil and gas development before and after Act 13, the legal arguments presented to the Commonwealth Court, and the Court’s rationale for its decision.  Possible outcomes and how local governments should react will be discussed.

To participate in the webinar, please log in to https://meeting.psu.edu/pscems/ .  No registration is necessary. If you have questions, please contact Carol Loveland at cal24@psu.edu or call (570) 433-3040.

Marcellus Drilling Affects Human Health - but no one's keeping track

A couple weeks ago AP reporter Kevin Begos reported that the Pennsylvania Department of Health had received fewer than 30 health complaints on drilling. This information resulted from a FOIL request, but in light of the fact that the DOH noted “several dozen” complaints in the first half of 2011, it makes little sense. Except maybe to point out that the system intended to protect public health is broken.

well just over the backyard fence; provided by T. Ruggiero

Upon closer investigation, AP has learned that the Dept. of Health isn’t following through on all drilling-related health complaints they’ve received. Furthermore, many people may not even be reporting health complaints because the DOH website doesn’t have a specific place for people to file such complaints. And, the agency has no current investigations regarding people who claim gas drilling has impacted their health.

The fact is this: drilling and production of gas is not healthy for children and other living things. People living in the Marcellus drilling fields are suffering ill health, and it’s not just the drilling; compressor stations and storage fields are contributing to health problems too. It’s not just groundwater and fracking – it’s the whole enchilada.

People are suffering from rashes, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, nausea, nosebleeds, sore throats, sinus congestion, blisters, skin lesions, respiratory distress, and hearing difficulties. They are suffering from vomiting, diarrhea, pain, elevated heart rate, hair loss, headaches, eye irritation, intestinal cancer, ruptured spleens, stomach cramps, loss of balance, slurred speech, memory loss, and tremors.

One 32-year old woman, living in a home 200 feet from a gas well, became comatose for three weeks. Her liver failed, her lungs filled with fluid.  Her heart valves had been encrusted by an unknown foreign body. When tested, her blood had 11 times the “maximum allowable” amount of barium, and that was two years after she had moved from the drill site. Recently her 12-year old daughter has been having balance problems, falling down while walking. 

So, how many people are we talking about?  In media reports alone, we’re looking at close to 90 Pennsylvania residents who have complained about health impacts related to drilling. There are more, for sure; people who can’t – or won’t – report illnesses because they may not see a link to industrial activities in their neighborhood. While asthma is related to pollution, the last asthma study PA completed was in 2009, for data collected before drilling really started.

Then there are things like heart attacks, also influenced by air pollution. A survey done in one Barnett Shale community revealed anecdotal evidence linking an increase in the rate of heart attacks with exposure to drilling emissions.

The lack of health complaints in PA does not mean that people aren’t suffering health impacts. It means that no one is collecting this vital public health data.

What NY Can Learn from PA

A couple months ago NY Department of Environmental Conservations (DEC) Commissioner Joseph Martens and five senior staff members visited PA to learn what’s gone wrongwith Marcellus drilling. On that list:

• improperly cemented casings
• excessive fracking pressures
• wellhead equipment failure
• lack of appropriate stormwater controls
• inadequate blowout prevention equipment
• high TDS (total dissolved solids) associated with disposing drilling waste fluids into public wastewater treatment plants

 All of these problems, says Martens, will be adequately addressed in the revised SGEIS.

But John Quigley, former Secretary of Pennsylvania’s Department of Conservation and Natural Resources thinks NY state and municipal officials need to pay attention to some of the other lessons they could learn from PA. At last month’s Finger Lakes Institute conference in Geneva, Quigley warned that PA’s experiences with shale drilling should provide a cautionary tale to NY. Not just about Marcellus shale, he said, but about resource extraction in general.

Pennsylvania has seen waves of natural resource extraction as companies have drilled for oil, mined coal and cleared millions of acres of timber to fuel the industrial revolutions. “In each case PA got it wrong,” Quigley said. “They privatized profits and socialized the costs.” The end result, he said, is a blighted environment, un-cemented and unplugged abandoned wells, 5,000 miles of dead streams (acid mine waste), air pollution, blighted communities and a declining population.

“The boom-bust cycle has ravaged the state,” Quigley said.

Marcellus shale underlies two thirds of Pennsylvania. Right now 7 million acres are tied up in gas companies – that’s a quarter of the state’s land mass, Quigley said. Energy companies estimate that over the next two decades they’ll drill 60,000 to 200,000 new wells. For every 60,000 wells they’ll need 15,000 miles of gathering lines, he explained, and 1700 miles of pipelines that will fragment the landscape.

Marcellus shale is only part of the story, Quigley said. Industry leaders predict that they’ll be drilling Utica shale for the next 100 years. “That will have more cumulative impact than all of the previous extractive industries combined,” he said.

With only 3300 Marcellus wells drilled so far, it’s hard for people to visualize the implications of large-scale industrialized shale-gas drilling, Quigley said. The important question is whether states can adequately regulate the drilling, monitor the activities and mitigate the impacts. Pennsylvania, he said, was slow to regulate the industry and has been “playing catch up”.

“We need to have disclosure of chemicals,” Quigley said. Other things on his must have list include: protecting local government authorities; reducing surface impacts that fragment the landscape; monitoring drilling wastes and groundwater. “We need an abundance of caution in protecting irreplaceable resources,” he said.