8-year frac health study shows fracking associated with increased asthma attacks: “Those who lived closer to a large number or bigger active natural gas wells were significantly more likely…to suffer asthma attacks” … “The highest risk for asthma attacks occurred in people living a median of about 12 miles from drilled wells. The lowest risk was for people living a median of about 40 miles away.”

Another health study showing harm, and still, the poisoning goes on and on and on.

[Remember:

2015: Oil and gas industry pollution travels hundreds of kilometres, No wonder Harper is muzzling Canadian scientists

2015: Fracing’s long reach: New Study says Fracking Wells Could Pollute The Air Hundreds Of Miles Away ]

ACCESS THE COMPLETE STUDY HERE, FREE: Association Between Unconventional Natural Gas Development in the Marcellus Shale and Asthma Exacerbations by Sara G. Rasmussen, MHS; Elizabeth L. Ogburn, PhD; Meredith McCormack, MD; Joan A. Casey, PhD; Karen Bandeen-Roche, PhD2; Dione G. Mercer, BS; Brian S. Schwartz, MD, MS, July 18, 2016, JAMA Intern Med. Published online July 18, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2016.2436

ABSTRACT
Importance Asthma is common and can be exacerbated by air pollution and stress. Unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) has community and environmental impacts. In Pennsylvania, UNGD began in 2005, and by 2012, 6253 wells had been drilled. There are no prior studies of UNGD and objective respiratory outcomes.

Objective To evaluate associations between UNGD and asthma exacerbations.

Design A nested case-control study comparing patients with asthma with and without exacerbations from 2005 through 2012 treated at the Geisinger Clinic, which provides primary care services to over 400 000 patients in Pennsylvania. Patients with asthma aged 5 to 90 years (n = 35 508) were identified in electronic health records; those with exacerbations were frequency matched on age, sex, and year of event to those without.

Exposures On the day before each patient’s index date (cases, date of event or medication order; controls, contact date), we estimated activity metrics for 4 UNGD phases (pad preparation, drilling, stimulation [hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”], and production) using distance from the patient’s home to the well, well characteristics, and the dates and durations of phases.

Main Outcomes and Measures We identified and defined asthma exacerbations as mild (new oral corticosteroid medication order), moderate (emergency department encounter), or severe (hospitalization).

Results We identified 20 749 mild, 1870 moderate, and 4782 severe asthma exacerbations, and frequency matched these to 18 693, 9350, and 14 104 control index dates, respectively. In 3-level adjusted models, there was an association between the highest group of the activity metric for each UNGD phase compared with the lowest group for 11 of 12 UNGD-outcome pairs: odds ratios (ORs) ranged from 1.5 (95% CI, 1.2-1.7) for the association of the pad metric with severe exacerbations to 4.4 (95% CI, 3.8-5.2) for the association of the production metric with mild exacerbations. Six of the 12 UNGD-outcome associations had increasing ORs across quartiles. Our findings were robust to increasing levels of covariate control and in sensitivity analyses that included evaluation of some possible sources of unmeasured confounding.

Conclusions and Relevance Residential UNGD activity metrics were statistically associated with increased risk of mild, moderate, and severe asthma exacerbations. Whether these associations are causal awaits further investigation, including more detailed exposure assessment.

Key Points
Question Is there an association between unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) and asthma exacerbations?

Findings In this nested case-control study of 35 508 patients with asthma, those in the highest quartile of residential UNGD activity had significantly higher odds of 3 types of asthma exacerbations (new oral corticosteroid medication orders, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations) than those in the lowest quartile.

Meaning UNGD activity near patient residences was associated with increased odds of mild, moderate, and severe asthma exacerbations.

Increased Asthma Attacks Tied to Exposure to Natural Gas Production, New study in the heart of Pennsylvania’s fracking region shows increase in severity of asthma among residents exposed to most active wells by Lisa Song and Nicholas Kusnetz, July 18, 2016, Inside Climate News

Exposure to more intense shale gas development correlates with a higher risk of asthma attacks among asthma patients, according to a new study of Pennsylvania’s Marcellus Shale, one of the nation’s largest and most active fracking regions.

The paper, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, a publication of the American Medical Association, didn’t examine the exact cause of the trend. But lead author Sara Rasmussen, a Ph.D. candidate in environmental health sciences at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said air pollution and stress are both plausible explanations.

Natural gas development releases various air pollutants including particulate matter, volatile organic compounds and sulfur dioxide. The equipment also produces loud noises and bright lights, which can increase anxiety and sleeplessness. Years of research show that all these factors can exacerbate asthma.

The paper adds to the growing research linking the natural gas industry to various health impacts including birth defects, respiratory problems and skin rashes. Rasmussen and her six co-authors launched the study in 2012, about four years after the Marcellus Shale boom took off in Pennsylvania.

Nicole Deziel, an assistant professor of epidemiology at Yale School of Public Health who was not involved in the paper, praised the scientists’ rigorous research methods. It “represents an important advancement,” she said in an email. “More health studies like this are needed.”

Previous studies relied heavily on less objective data, such as self-reported symptoms, Rasmussen said. But her team had access to detailed medical records from the Geisinger Health System. Geisinger provides care for more than 400,000 Pennsylvania residents, including many who live near shale wells.

Rasmussen said the paper is the first to examine unconventional natural gas development and “objective respiratory impacts,” which refer to incidents reported to health providers in the form of hospital visits or prescriptions.

The researchers identified 35,508 patients ages 5 to 90 with a history of asthma between 2005 and 2012. They then located the patients who reported asthma attacks to Geisinger, and analyzed the intensity of shale gas development near their homes in the days leading up to the attacks. They also calculated the level of shale activity near the homes of asthma patients who did not report asthma attacks.

Intensity levels were calculated from several factors, such as the density of wells near the home and the home’s proximity to those wells; the well’s depth and gas production volume; and the well’s stage of development (pad preparation, drilling, hydraulic fracturing or production).

Wells with heavy production activity, referring to those that produced the most gas, had the greatest effect. The researchers ranked the patients’ homes based on the surrounding shale activity, and found that residents who lived in homes ranked among the top 25 percent for production activity were four times more likely to have a mild asthma attack, and 1.7 times more likely to suffer a severe asthma attack, than those in the bottom 25 percent.

The scientists controlled for other factors that could have influenced the results, such as the patient’s smoking history, socioeconomic status and the home’s proximity to the nearest road, which could affect air pollution levels.

Deziel, who has studied the potential health impacts of hydraulic fracturing fluids, said the study was “well-designed,” with “numerous strengths, including the large study population, the use of medical records to determine asthma exacerbations, and the inclusion of several other factors that could have explained the observed associations.”

Rasmussen said their biggest challenge was obtaining accurate data on the wells’ phases of development. State drilling records were often spotty or inconsistent, she said, so they drew on data from several regulatory agencies as well as SkyTruth, a website that crowdsources aerial photos of well pad locations, to fill in the gaps.

Deziel said the researchers’ analysis of the activity occurring at each well ” is an important step towards a better understanding of whether a certain aspect of the unconventional development process may be more hazardous.”

Bernard Goldstein, an emeritus professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, said the study’s findings are important but should come as no surprise, given what’s known about links between air pollution and asthma. “There are regional ozone problems that could easily be exacerbated by fracking operations.”

Funding for the study came from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Science Foundation, the Degenstein Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. One of the authors, Brian Schwartz, disclosed that he is an unpaid, informal adviser to the Post Carbon Institute, a California sustainability think tank. He said the relationship did not pose a conflict of interest because the institute played no role in this study. Schwartz is an environmental health sciences professor at Johns Hopkins and Rasmussen’s faculty adviser.

The next step in this type of public health research is to study the mechanisms that lead to increased asthma attacks, and determine whether air pollution, psychological stress or another factor is the real culprit, Rasmussen said.

That would involve installing air pollution and noise monitors in communities, and using personal monitors to track residents’ pollution exposure.

“For the most part, epidemiologists will never say one study proves cause,” she said, so it could take many years to reach definitive conclusions. [Emphasis added]

Fracking May Worsen Asthma For Nearby Residents, Study Says by Associated Press, July 18, 2016, News9

A new study says fracking may worsen asthma in children and adults who live near sites where the oil and gas drilling method is used.

The study, published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that asthma treatments were as much as four times more common in patients living closer to areas with more or bigger wells than in those living far away.

The study did not establish that fracking directly caused or worsened asthma, and it couldn’t say if patients exposed to fracking fare worse than those exposed to other industrial activities.

The study was done from 2005 through 2012 in Pennsylvania when fracking activity there soared. [Emphasis added]

Fracking Worsens Asthma Symptoms for Nearby Residents by Alison Crick, July 18, 2016, Jilard Health Digest, In Business of Health

Fracking has developed a bad reputation, with viral videos showing residents setting their water on fire and some reports suggesting an increase in earthquakes near natural gas development. Now researchers have discovered another possible negative effect of this method of harvesting natural gas, with a geographic link to increased asthma symptoms.

The study comes from Brian S. Schwartz, M.D. at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and other researchers. The researchers published their results July 18th in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. Hoping to discover if there was a link between fracking activity and asthma symptoms, the researchers studied residents in the state of Pennsylvania, which has plenty of fracking activity in certain areas.

For their study, the authors examined health records of 35,508 patients at the Geisinger Clinic in Pennsylvania. The records were from the years 2005 to 2012, and the patients included asthma patients who either did or did not have exacerbations, worsening symptoms of their condition. The data did not include information about occupation and did include the most recent patient address.

Researchers classed worsening asthma symptoms as mild, with 20,749 patients getting a new oral corticosteroid prescription, moderate, with 1,870 patients visiting the emergency room for their asthma, and severe, with 4,782 asthma patients hospitalized. The researchers then compared this patient data to how close they live to unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) activity, which includes preparing the well, drilling, stimulation which is also called fracking, and natural gas production. Between 2005 and 2013, companies drilled 6,253 wells in the state of Pennsylvania on 2,710 pads, stimulated 4,728 wells, and had production activity at 3,706 wells.

When the researchers compared asthma symptoms with the distance of patient homes to natural gas activity, they found a link. Those who lived closer to fracking and other activity had higher risk of mild, moderate, and severe asthma exacerbations. Those who lived the furthest away from the fracking and other activity had the lowest risk of these exacerbations. This seems to suggest that living close to the natural gas activity was worsening asthma symptoms.

Others had already associated fracking and natural gas activity with poor air quality, along with sleep disruption and air pollution associated with truck traffic to and from the wells. Residents living near fracking activity may face air, water, and soil pollution, noise, vibration, strong odors, conversion of rural areas to industrial areas, and even stress.

Health experts already know outdoor air pollution, strong odors, and stress can all increase asthma symptoms. The authors of the current study point out that with almost 26 million people in the United States alone suffering from chronic asthma, and increasing use of fracking to harvest natural gas for energy, this is a public health concern. Quality of life and the cost of healthcare can both be affected by an increase in asthma symptoms, so the authors call for more studies into which effects of natural gas development trigger the asthma symptoms and how the asthma patients can be protected. The current study does not prove a link between fracking and asthma exacerbation, but it provides incentive to take a closer look.

… When a patient suffers from asthma, their airways can narrow and swell, causing breathing difficulties, coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, chest pain, and even lack of sleep. Symptoms can range from minor to life-threatening, and asthma symptoms can worsen from stress, exercise, allergies, a cold or flu, and environmental factors such as air pollution. [Emphasis added]

Fracking wells increase rate of asthma attacks in nearby residents, study finds by News Desk, July 18, 2016, PBS News Hour

Natural gas wells created by fracking in Pennsylvania may elevate the number of asthma attacks for nearby asthma patients, according to a study published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The investigation found a patient living near one of these sites — known as unconventional natural gas development (UNGD) wells — was 1.5 times more likely to have a severe asthma attack and four times as likely to have a moderate attack.

While the study doesn’t prove natural gas pollution caused the asthma attacks, it is likely to stir the debate over the health effects of fracking.

“We are concerned with the growing number of studies that have observed health effects associated with this industry,” Dr. Brian Schwartz, senior author and environmental health scientist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a statement. “We believe it is time to take a more cautious approach to well development with an eye on environmental and public health impacts.”

Schwartz and his colleagues came to this conclusion by tracking 35,508 asthma patients in the Geisinger Health System, which serves northeastern and central Pennsylvania. The team collected data on how often these patients had mild, moderate and severe asthma attacks from 2005 to 2012. The study stated more than 6,200 wells were drilled during this timeframe. The researchers then cross-referenced how far these patients lived from UNGD wells.

Along with finding that a well’s proximity correlates with asthma attack, the study said the most hazardous stage was the production stage. UNGD wells are made in four stages: pad preparation, drilling, stimulation (hydraulic fracturing/fracking) and production where natural gas is consistently extracted and typically lasts for the longest period of time.

The team’s members plan to look into specific causes for the upward trend, but they suspect air pollution or elevated stress due increased noise levels might play a role. [Emphasis added]

Fracking associated with asthma flare-ups by Lisa Rapaport, July 18, 2016, Reuters Health

For asthma patients, living near fracking sites is associated with more symptom flare-ups that require medication and hospital care, a U.S. study suggests.

Air pollution has long been known to worsen asthma. But less is known about the impact of fracking, which involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into the ground to free oil and gas reserves from rock formations.

“Residents of communities undergoing (fracking) and those nearby can be exposed to noise, light, vibration, heavy truck traffic, air pollution, social disruption and anxiety,” Sara Rasmussen of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore told Reuters Health by email.

Rasmussen and colleagues reviewed data on nearly 35,500 asthma patients treated at the Geisinger Clinic in more than 35 counties in Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2012. Fracking took off in the state around the start of the study period; by the end, 6,253 wells had been drilled.

The researchers identified 20,749 mild asthma flare-ups, when patients got new drugs prescribed to manage symptoms, 1,870 cases of moderate worsening when patients visited the emergency department and 4,782 severe instances when patients were hospitalized.

The asthma patients who lived closest to a large number or bigger active wells were 50 percent more likely than those living further away to have severe exacerbations during the site preparation stage, researchers report in JAMA Internal Medicine.

During the production stage, which can last several years, asthma patients were more than four times as likely to have mild flare-ups when they lived closest to bigger or more fracking sites.

The study doesn’t prove fracking causes asthma or makes symptoms worse, and it also doesn’t explain why asthma flare-ups appear more likely when people live closer to fracking sites.

One limitation of the study is that researchers didn’t know where patients worked or what they did for a living, both of which might influence their proximity to fracking sites. And the analysis was based on patients’ most recent address, which didn’t account for residential moves during the study period.

Even so, the analysis is the first to link fracking to objective respiratory outcomes for asthma patients, the authors conclude.

Still, after accounting for other factors like obesity and smoking that might influence whether asthma patients experience complications, the link was strong, said Dr. Steve Georas, an environmental health researcher at the University of Rochester Medical Center in New York who wasn’t involved in the study.

“This study should be a wake-up call to patients and physicians, and prompt additional research into the reasons for the associations” between fracking and asthma flares, Georas said by email. [More study on the frac poisoned recommended? When will the “experts” start demanding that the harms and poisoning stop instead? Have they no courage or morality?]

… But critics have raised concerns about health risks and environmental problems such as groundwater contamination, increased earthquake activity and exacerbation of droughts.

People who live near fracking sites can take precautions to protect against asthma flare-ups, said Michael Jerrett, an environmental health researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles who wasn’t involved in the study.

“Central air conditioning with a proper filter might get some of the potential contaminants,” [Does industry pay for that and the upkeep? How many ordinary poisoned families can afford that?  Or want the noise and maintenance? And who and what cleans the air outside when adults tend to their gardens and yards and children play? Who cleans the outside air when children walk to and from and play at school or in parks or go fishing, swimming, biking, skiing? Is Mr. Jerrett recommending that children and their parents living frac’d no longer be allowed outside? How do they get to school? No more picnics?  No more campfires?  No more camping out?] Jerrett said by email. “For children, consider where they play outside, and when you’re planning heavy exercise you might not want to be in the park right by the fracking site.” [Where do you then? And who pays to get you there? Will the regulators or the frac’ers supply limo service to safe air and for which families? Just the rich or families with workers at frac sites?]

Study says fracking may worsen asthma for nearby residents by Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press, July 18, 2016, The Globe and Mail

Fracking may worsen asthma in children and adults who live near sites where the oil and gas drilling method is used, according to an 8-year study in Pennsylvania.

The study found that asthma treatments were as much as four times more common in patients living closer to areas with more or bigger active wells than those living far away.

But the study did not establish that fracking directly caused or worsened asthma. There’s also no way to tell from the study whether asthma patients exposed to fracking fare worse than those exposed to more traditional gas drilling methods or to other industrial activities.

… Johns Hopkins University researcher Sara Rasmussen, the study’s lead author, said pollution and stress from the noise caused by fracking might explain the results. But the authors emphasized that the study doesn’t prove what caused patients’ symptoms.

More than 25 million U.S. adults and children have asthma, a disease that narrows airways in the lungs. Symptoms include wheezing, breathing difficulties and chest tightness, and they can sometimes flare up with exposure to dust, air pollution and stress. [And asthma can kill, fast]

Previous research has found heavy air pollution in areas where oil and gas drilling is booming.

The new study was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The researchers noted that between 2005 and 2012, more than 6,200 fracking wells were drilled in Pennsylvania. They used electronic health records to identify almost 36,000 asthma patients treated during that time in the Geisinger Health System, which covers more than 40 counties in Pennsylvania. Evidence of asthma attacks included new prescriptions for steroid medicines, emergency-room treatment for asthma and asthma hospitalizations.

During the study, there were more than 20,000 new oral steroid prescriptions ordered, almost 5,000 asthma hospitalizations and almost 2,000 ER asthma visits.

Those outcomes were 50 per cent to four times more common in asthma patients living closer to areas with more or bigger active wells than among those living far away.

The highest risk for asthma attacks occurred in people living a median of about 12 miles from drilled wells. The lowest risk was for people living a median of about 40 miles away.

Dr. Norman H. Edelman, senior scientific adviser for the American Lung Association, called the study “interesting and provocative.” But he said it only shows an association between fracking and asthma, not a “cause and effect,” and that more rigorous research is needed.

“Asthma is a huge problem,” he said. “Anything we can do to elucidate the causes will be very useful.” [Emphasis added]

Asthma risk up to 4x higher near fracking sites: US study by Kerry Sheridan, July 18, 2016, Yahoo News

Miami (AFP) – Living near sites that extract natural gas by hydraulic fracturing, also known as fracking, may increase the risk of asthma up to four times, a US study said Monday.

The findings, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Internal Medicine, are based on research examining health records collected from 2005 to 2012 in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania.

The researchers found more than 35,000 asthma patients aged from five to 90.

Most asthma attacks they suffered — nearly 21,000 in all — were mild, requiring a corticosteroid prescription.

Another 4,782 severe attacks required hospitalization and 1,870 moderate ones prompted emergency room visits.

The researchers mapped where the patients lived, together with the location, size and number of natural gas operations, and compared them to asthma patients who suffered no attacks during the same year.

“Those who lived closer to a large number or bigger active natural gas wells were significantly more likely — 1.5 to four times more likely — to suffer asthma attacks,” the study said.

The findings held up even when the researchers accounted for other factors that can exacerbate asthma, such as living near main roads, having a family history of asthma, and smoking, they said.

However, the study uncovered only an association between fracking and asthma, and did not prove any link or explain why asthma may be more common.

“Ours is the first to look at asthma but we now have several studies suggesting adverse health outcomes related to the drilling of unconventional natural gas wells,” said lead researcher Sara Rasmussen of the Bloomberg School’s Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Johns Hopkins University.

“Going forward, we need to focus on the exact reasons why these things are happening because if we know why, we can help make the industry safer.” [If companies cared, they wouldn’t poison the air, land and water in the first place and there would be no need for these endless studies leading nowhere but the poisoned still being poisoned.]

– Air quality concerns –

The growth of Pennsylvania’s fracking operations — with more than 6,000 wells developed in the past decade — has raised concerns about effects on air and water quality.

Asthma is a chronic disease that can be made worse by outdoor air pollution, stress and sleep disruption — all of which have been linked to unconventional natural gas development in previous studies.

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, pointed to the researchers’ failure to prove cause and effect, and asked why the study did not look at earlier years, before the rise in natural gas operations, for comparison.

“It’s also striking that the authors failed to provide comparative data from, say, eight years or so prior to shale development emerging in the region,” said spokeswoman Erica Clayton Wright.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Senior author Brian Schwartz, a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Bloomberg School, disclosed that he is an unpaid fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute, a renewable energy think-tank.

However, he insisted that the JAMA study “is entirely independent of PCI and is not motivated, reviewed or funded” by the think-tank.

“We are concerned with the growing number of studies that have observed health effects associated with this industry,” said Schwartz.

“We believe it is time to take a more cautious approach to well development with an eye on environmental and public health impacts.” [Emphasis added]

Fracking may worsen asthma for nearby residents, study says by Lindsey Tanner, The Associated Press, July 18, 2016, Calgary Herald

CHICAGO – Fracking may worsen asthma in children and adults who live near sites where the oil and gas drilling method is used, according to an 8-year study in Pennsylvania.

The study found that asthma treatments were as much as four times more common in patients living closer to areas with more or bigger active wells than those living far away.

But the study did not establish that fracking directly caused or worsened asthma. There’s also no way to tell from the study whether asthma patients exposed to fracking fare worse than those exposed to more traditional gas drilling methods or to other industrial activities.

Fracking refers to hydraulic fracturing, a technique for extracting oil and gas by injecting water, sand and chemicals into wells at high pressure to crack rock. Environmental effects include exhaust, dust and noise from heavy truck traffic transporting water and other materials, and from drilling rigs and compressors. Fracking and improved drilling methods led to a boom in production of oil and gas in several U.S. states, including Pennsylvania, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Texas and Colorado.

Sara Rasmussen, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, said pollution and stress from the noise caused by fracking might explain the results. But the authors emphasized that the study doesn’t prove what caused patients’ symptoms.

More than 25 million U.S. adults and children have asthma, a disease that narrows airways in the lungs. Symptoms include wheezing, breathing difficulties and chest tightness, and they can sometimes flare up with exposure to dust, air pollution and stress.

Previous research has found heavy air pollution in areas where oil and gas drilling is booming.

Industry groups responding to the new research said air samplings measured by Pennsylvania authorities near natural gas operations during some of the study years found pollutant levels unlikely to cause health issues. But samplings were limited and didn’t reflect potential cumulative effects of emissions from the drilling sites.

The new study was published Monday in JAMA Internal Medicine.

The researchers noted that between 2005 and 2012, more than 6,200 fracking wells were drilled in Pennsylvania. They used electronic health records to identify almost 36,000 asthma patients treated during that time in the Geisinger Health System, which covers more than 40 counties in Pennsylvania. Evidence of asthma attacks included new prescriptions for steroid medicines, emergency-room treatment for asthma and asthma hospitalizations.

During the study, there were more than 20,000 new oral steroid prescriptions ordered, almost 5,000 asthma hospitalizations and almost 2,000 ER asthma visits.

Those outcomes were 50 per cent to four times more common in asthma patients living closer to areas with more or bigger active wells than among those living far away.

The highest risk for asthma attacks occurred in people living a median of about 12 miles from drilled wells. The lowest risk was for people living a median of about 40 miles away.

Dr. Norman H. Edelman, senior scientific adviser for the American Lung Association, called the study “interesting and provocative.” But he said it only shows an association between fracking and asthma, not a “cause and effect,” and that more rigorous research is needed.

“Asthma is a huge problem,” he said. “Anything we can do to elucidate the causes will be very useful.” [Emphasis added]

 

Exploding Fire Consumes Oil Field in San Juan Basin; Cause Unknown by Frances Madeson, July 14, 2016, Indian Country Today

A fire that consumed storage tanks at an oil field in New Mexico is slowly burning out, and a WPX Energy spokesperson has apologized to dozens of Navajo Nation citizens who had to evacuate their homes.

“We’re deeply sorry for the lives interrupted,” said WPX Energy spokesperson Kelly Swan, after 55 homes had to be evacuated. “The Navajo Nation is an important stakeholder.” [So it’s ok to poison their air?]

The fire broke out in a series of explosions on Monday, July 11 at 10:15 pm at WPX Energy’s West Lybrook six-well-pad unit, a five-acre oil production site on Highway 550 near Nageezi, New Mexico, in San Juan County.

As of 7:30 a.m. on July 14 the fire, which WPX officials had hoped would burn itself out in a matter of hours, was ongoing, according to San Juan County spokesperson Michele Truby-Tillen.

“Fire department personnel are on the scene this morning working on a plan,” Truby-Tillen said, adding that while some evacuees had been allowed home, others will have to wait. “Evacuees will be allowed to return to their homes when fire chief Craig Daugherty feels that its safe for them to go back.”

All of the 36 storage tanks, 30 holding oil and six a mix of water and hydrocarbon, caught fire and burned, according to Swan. Chemical foam was the only alternative to letting the fire burn itself out, but the decision was made not to use it “because of the great risk to responders, and because foam could carry oil products outside of the perimeter,” Swan said.

Personnel from five local agencies are monitoring the fire, though Rosalita Whitehair, director of emergency management for the Navajo Nation, said that her office is currently not one of them. WPX said it has “mobilized environmental contractors to conduct air screenings with FLIR infrared cameras and photo ionization detectors.”

Full environmental impacts on air and water quality will be assessed once the fire has burned out and the site has cooled off, officials said.

“WPX Energy will have to remediate the area once the fire has stopped, in accordance with federal and state regulations,” said Beth Wojahn, New Mexico Oil Conservation Department’s media spokeswoman. NMOCD, which approved WPX’s application to develop the site last September, will monitor remediation.

The company does not know how much oil burned off.

“That will be part of the investigation,” Swan said. “Our priority is public safety.”

The environmental group Diné Citizens Against Ruining Our Environment (Diné CARE) said the incident was proof that fracking has no place on Navajo land. [Or anywhere near  where water and air is needed to drink and breath in order to survive?]

“The event demonstrates the increasing dangers of modern fossil fuel development, highlights the environment damage of the industry, and serves as a sobering reminder of the urgent need to build safe, clean renewable energy in place of fossil fuels,” the group said in a statement.

The New Mexico Environment Department said it is keeping abreast of developments.

“Protecting the quality of that air that we breathe and notifying New Mexicans of dangerous conditions is a top priority for the New Mexico Environment Department,” said New Mexico Environment Department spokesperson Allison Scott Majure. [So what? Even if the department did as it says, how do notifications clean up or prevent the pollution?]

But many on the Navajo Nation do not feel that that is the case. “For years, our community has dealt with the impacts of this industry—the noise, the light, the air pollution, and knowing that each well drilled locks in years of climate changing pollution,” said Samuel Sage, Counselor Chapter Community Services Coordinator, in the Diné CARE statement. “But today, we reached the end of our rope as we watched the biggest disaster yet pollute the skies and blacken the earth.” [Emphasis added]

[What fracpatch chemicals are you and your loved ones breathing?

2016 05 01: Albertans still don’t know what toxic oilfield chemicals their children are breathing. When will companies be ordered to fully disclose all chemicals, including trade secrets, before racing toxic truck loads through school zones, by hospitals, where children play, and before injected, spilled, dumped, spread on foodlands, flared, vented, spewed from endless facilities?

2014 03 12 NW of Calgary Cochrane Interpipeline Gas Plant Non-compliant Pollution Reported to AER

Cochrane Interpipeline Gas Plant NW of Calgary, Alberta

Fracking by your home?

Hold your breath, all day and night long:

Frac photos by FrackingCanada

This entry was posted in Global Frac News. Bookmark the permalink.