This story was originally published on Inside Climate News. It is reproduced as part of a collaboration with Climate Desk. According to research published Tuesday, oil and gas producers in Pennsylvania have used 160 million pounds in over 5,000 gas wells from 2012 to 2022 that they were not required to identify publicly by law. The
drilling for a natural gas also close to Dimock, Pennsylvania. Zuma / Charles Mostoller
As part of the Climate Desk collaboration, this article, which was first published by Inside Climate News, is reproduced around.
According to research released on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s oil and gas producers used about 160 million pounds of chemicals in more than 5, 000 gas wells between 2012 and 2022 that are never required by law to be publicly identified.
According to the report from Physicians for Social Responsibility, an activist group that last week co-published a new compilation of studies on the negative effects of hydraulic fracturing for oil and gas, the chemicals may have included per – and polyfluoroalkyl substances( PFAS ), which are toxic and pervasive classes of chemicals.
The chemicals must be disclosed by the industry to state regulators in the database FracFocus. However, if doing so would put their operations at a dynamic disadvantage, operators are permitted by state law to refrain from disclosing them in public.
The new report claims that two oil and gas operators used at least one type of PFAS in eight Pennsylvania wells during the study period — data that PSR first reported in 2021 — even though the FracFocus data does not specify which substances were among the chemicals.
One company used PFAS at four wells in Washington County and one in Beaver County. According to the report, a different operator used the chemicals in three wells in Lawrence County.
According to Dusty Horwitt, the report’s author,” Eight wells may simply be the tip of the iceberg because we also found that 160 million pounds of trade-secret chemicals were injected into thousands of innovative gas well over the same period.”
There hasn’t been much research done to determine whether PFAS contamination of groundwater has occurred in the oil and gas industry. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade organization that speaks for Pennsylvania’s natural gas sector, stated that using PFAS as an additive for fracturing wells is” no popular practice.” Before it became law more than ten years ago, members of the Marcellus Shale Coalition deliberately provided state environmental and emergency responders with all trace additives used in the good completion process, according to a statement from the group’s president, David Callahan. He claimed that Pennsylvania has” nation-leading” standards for quality construction.
Because they don’t decompose in the environment and build up in almost every American’s blood, PFAS — also known as” forever chemicals”— are linked to serious illnesses like cancer, low birth weights, ulcerative colitis, decreased vaccine receptivity, and elevated cholesterol. US states, including Pennsylvania, have been exceedingly imposing health restrictions on the presence of the chemicals in drinking water as evidence of their threat to public health gathers.
According to the FDA,” Accumulation of some PFAS has also been demonstrated through blood tests to occur in humans and animals.” Evidence suggests that this bioaccumulation of specific PFAS may result in significant health conditions, despite the fact that the science surrounding its possible health effects is still in its infancy.
Since the 1940s, the man-made chemicals have been used in a variety of consumer products, including flame-resistant fabrics and coated cookware, to act as stain and fire retardants. High levels of PFAS water contamination near countless military bases are a result of their use by the military in firefighting foam.
Six chemicals, including two of the most prevalent types — PFOA and PFOS — were proposed by the EPA for the first federal regulation in March 2023. When it is finalized, these chemicals will have much stricter drinking water health restrictions than any that the states have so far established.
Some chemicals used in drilling and fracking, according to critics of the oil and gas sector, have the potential to contaminate the aquifers that supply drinking water to private water wells in Pennsylvania and abroad. According to the industry, layers of steel and concrete that run through an aquifer separate its drilling fluids from them, and fracking chemicals are released thousands of feet below sources of people drinking water.
Because the problem wasn’t discovered until Physicians for Social Responsibility published its second report on the subject in 2021, Horwitt said, there hasnt been much research on whether the oil and gas industry has contaminated groundwater with PFAS.
He claimed that the use of PFAS in an oil and gas operation was unknown until a few years back. The oil and gas industry appears to have held this information in high regard. The public needs to be aware that PFAS pollution may also come from oil and gas operations.
Due to the chemical’s ability to reduce friction, Horwitt claimed that the oil and gas industry uses PTFE, a type of PFAS, to drill into rock. According to him, the industry also makes use of” surfactants,” chemical substances that can be used as detergents or foaming agents and may also contain PFAS chemicals.
According to a study conducted in August of this year by the US Geological Survey and Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, streams near tiny rural towns surrounded by oil and gas development may have” low levels” of PFAS contamination, particularly from chemicals the EPA intends to control.
According to that report, PFAS, which” considerably increase” the recovery of petroleum hydrocarbons, may be present in fluids and foams used for drilling and fracking gas wells. According to the USGS / DEP study, combined sewer overflows( CSOs ), which take combined stormwater and sewage during heavy rains, could be used to identify any PFAS contamination of nearby creeks and rivers.
” We want to give Pennsylvanians and government representatives the tools they need to comprehend the constrained scope of what we know about PFAS.” In this study, the CSO surrounded by oil and gas development in nearby catchments could be a possible source of PFAS to nearby streams, despite the restricted research on the effects of such development on surface water contamination.
Operators do no need DEP approval for the use of chemical additives in fracking, but they must report what they have used to the agency within 30 days of finishing a well, according to Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the state of the oil and gas industry.
The organization declined to comment on whether it approves the use of PFAS but did cite a requirement that states that the completion report must include” a descriptive list of the chemical additives in the stimulation fluids, including any acid, biocide, breaker, brine. corrosion inhibitor. crosslinker. demulsifier. friction reducer. gel. iron control. Oxygen scavenger. Ph adjusting agent. proppant. scale inhibitor, surfactant.”
Additionally, it was noted that anything that” constitutes or reveals a trade secret or private amazing information” is exempt from the state’s right-to-know law.
Concerns about the chemicals’ threat to public health would be fueled by the possibility that PFAS chemicals have contaminated groundwater in Pennsylvania or other states where the fracking industry is effective, according to the PSR report. It claimed that PFAS, which is just a small portion of the unnamed chemicals used in Pennsylvania’s unconventional gas wells, could seriously endanger human health.
Despite the fact that PSR published the eight wells using PFAS in 2021, Horwitt said the new report is meant to raise questions about the industry’s potential for many more widespread use. With this most recent report, he stated,” we want to give Pennsylvanian citizens and government officials the tools they need to comprehend both the constrained scope of our knowledge of PFAS use in the state’s oil and gas wells and the possible much larger scope that is concealed by its lax chemical disclosure rules.”
The report urged Pennsylvania to follow Colorado’s lead, which forbade the use of PFAS by the oil and gas sector and mandated public disclosure of all chemicals used in fracking, including custom chemicals. Additionally, it urged Pennsylvania and the national government to step up water testing so they could determine where PFAS chemicals have been used in the oil and gas industry, to end the exemption from toxic waste regulations, and to outlaw the production of wastewater and wells near drinking water sources as well as close to homes and schools. As part of the Climate Desk collaboration, this article, which was first published by Inside Climate News, is reproduced around. According to research released on Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s oil and gas producers used about 160 million pounds of chemicals in more than 5, 000 gas wells between 2012 and 2022 that are never required by law to be publicly identified. The
This story was originally published on Inside Climate News. It is reproduced as part of a collaboration with Climate Desk. According to research published Tuesday, oil and gas producers in Pennsylvania have used 160 million pounds in over 5,000 gas wells from 2012 to 2022 that they were not required to identify publicly by law. The
A gas well that extracts natural gas is being constructed close to Dimock, Pennsylvania. Charles Mostoller photographed Zuma. This report, published on Tuesday by Physicians for Social Responsibility, revealed that oil and gas producers in Pennsylvania utilized an estimated 160 million pounds of chemicals, some of which may have been the highly damaging and widespread per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), between 2012 and 2022. Though required to submit this information to the FracFocus database maintained by state regulators, the industry is not obligated to make this information public. State law allows operators to withhold certain information from the public if it may put their businesses at a competitive disadvantage. The newest report illustrates that, at least in two instances, PFAS were used at Pennsylvania wells over a certain amount of time. A further breakdown of this states that the PFAS was employed by one company across four wells in Washington County and one in Beaver County. This data was originally reported by PSR in 2021. A new report indicated that a different oil and gas operator employed liquid chemicals in three wells in Lawrence County. Dusty Horwitt, the author of the report, made the comment that the eight wells identified may be just the start of the issue as 160 million pounds of secret substances have been spilled into multiple nonconventional gas wells throughout the same timeframe. There has been very limited examination on the likelihood of the oil and gas sector tainting land water with PFAS. The Marcellus Shale Coalition, comprised of gas related industries from Pennsylvania, noted that it is not a usual practice to use PFAS as an additive for fracking within Marcellus wells. David Callahan, president of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, stated in a press release that the organization was way ahead of its time when it chose to publicly list all additives used in oil well completion processes more than 10 years prior to it becoming a legal requirement. They have furthermore provided the details of these additives to state environmental and emergency responders. He pointed out that Pennsylvania has one of the strongest regulations on well-construction in the nation, but remarked that PFAS still poses an issue. These chemicals, otherwise known as “forever chemicals” due to their inability to decompose, accumulate in the bloodstreams of nearly every U.S. resident and can lead to a variety of illnesses including cancers, low birth weights, ulcerative colitis, a decrease in the efficacy of vaccines, and raised cholesterol. More and more evidence is being accumulated showing the danger certain chemicals pose to people’s well-being, prompting states such as Pennsylvania to set health limits for how much of them can be in drinking water. Tests conducted on humans and animals indicate that PFAS can build up in the bloodstream.
