According to a team of researchers from the Colorado School of Public Health, Boulder County Public Health, CU Boulder, NASA, and the University of California Irvine, people who live near oil and gas facilities along Colorado’s Northern Front Range may be being exposed to hazardous air pollutants, including carcinogens like benzene, above levels deemed acceptable by the EPA. (Colorado law requires new oil and gas wells to be 500 feet from a residence and 1,000 feet from buildings serving more than 50 people.)
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Using ambient air samples to estimate and compare risks in four different residential scenarios, the study found “…the lifetime cancer risk of those living within 500 feet of a well was eight times higher than the EPA’s upper level risk threshold.”1
“…air pollutant concentrations increased with proximity to an oil and gas facility, as did health risks. Acute hazard indices for neurological, hematological and developmental health effects indicate that populations living within 152 meters (500 feet) of an oil and gas facility could experience these health effects from inhalation exposures to benzene and alkanes.”2
The study’s lead author, Lisa McKenzie, Ph.D., MPH, of the Colorado School of Public Health, said their results suggest that the current Colorado regulations specifying a 500-foot distance between a newly drilled oil and gas well and an existing home might not actually protect people. There are currently thousands of people who live along the Front Range of Colorado, closer than 500 feet from a well.
The study focused on the emission of non-methane hydrocarbons (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes) finding the highest concentrations of hazardous air pollutants collected nearest to the oil and gas facilities. McKenzie said, “For example, average benzene concentrations were 41 times higher in samples collected within 500 feet of an oil and gas facility than in samples collected more than a mile away.”3
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And researchers noted that due to high atmospheric stability, nighttime emissions do not disperse as easily as they do during the day, meaning benzene levels might be twice as high at night compared to daytime levels.4
Previous studies in Colorado, Pennsylvania, and Texas have found the following medical issues are more likely to be found among people who live in close proximity to oil and gas wells:
- fetal death
- low birthweight
- preterm birth
- asthma
- fatigue
- migraines
- chronic rhinosinusitis
- infants with congenital heart defects
- and children diagnosed with leukemia
There is an obvious need for more research. While we have enough evidence to support that benzene causes cancer in those who work in and around it, we have “less evidence about its impact on non-occupational populations.”5 But, with industry rapidly growing in the Denver Julesburg Basin, 19 percent of the population- about 356,000 people- live about a mile from an active oil and gas site. If new and tighter regulations aren’t quickly adapted, the state is looking at a potential cancer cluster. Or, a cancer epidemic.
To read the entire study, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, click here.
If you live in close proximity to oil and gas wells, be safe. And maybe, if you are able, move. XO- Erin
