wanted a safe, comfortable home for her grandchildren, Lexy and Damien, who she'd raised since they were babies. At the time, Lexy was 15-years old and Damien was 13.
The kids fell in love with the house. There were still fracking wells nearby—they're virtually impossible to avoid in Washington County—but there were none within a mile of the school, and they didn't see any new wells being drilled close to the house.
Soon after moving in, though, they learned that their new home was within a mile and a half of a well pad with six wells already in production (meaning no longer being "fracked" or drilled, but producing natural gas and oil), and less than a half mile away from a large metal casting facility. An EHN analysis of the air and water at their new home, along with urine samples from the family, suggest they're being exposed to higher-than-average levels of many of the chemicals they were concerned about at their old house.
In 2019, EHN collected urine samples, along with air and water samples, from five families in southwestern Pennsylvania and had them analyzed for chemicals associated with fracking.
Read about how we conducted our study
Jane and her grandchildren were one of the five families we studied. We collected a total of nine urine samples from the family over a 5-week period and found 18 chemicals known to be commonly emitted from fracking sites in one or more samples, including benzene, toluene, naphthalene, and lesser-known compounds—all of which are linked to negative health impacts including respiratory and gastro- intestinal problems, skin and eye irritation, organ damage, reproductive harm, and increased cancer risk.
Some chemical exposures aren't detectable in urine if the body has already processed them, so we also looked for breakdown products, or biomarkers, for harmful chemicals. Some of these biomarkers show up when people consume certain foods or beverages, so to determine whether the levels we saw in Pennsylvania families were normal, we compared them against those seen in the average American using U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.
We found that urine samples for Jane and her grandkids contained bio- markers for fracking chemicals at levels higher than the U.S. 95th percentile—the value that 95 percent of Americans fall below, according to that CDC data.
All of the family's samples exceeded the U.S. 95th percentile for mandelic acid, a biomarker for ethylbenzene and styrene. More than half of the family's samples exceeded the U.S. 95th percentile for phenylglyoxylic acid, another biomarker for ethylbenzene and styrene, and for trans, trans-muconic acid, a biomarker for benzene. A third of the family's samples exceeded the 95th percentile for hippuric acid, a biomarker for toluene.
Exposure to these compounds is linked to eye, skin, respiratory and gastrointestinal irritation; neurological, immune, kidney, cardiovascular, blood, and developmental disorders; hormone disruption; and increased cancer risk.
The family's urine samples also suggested that they had higher-than-average exposures to biomarkers for toluene and xylenes, which are linked to skin and eye irritation, drowsiness and dizziness, and central nervous system damage.
There's no way to know for certain whether the family's exposures came from fracking emissions. We visited Jane's home, had her complete an extensive survey about other possible sources of exposure, and recorded the family's activities around the time of our sampling and did not find other obvious explanations, though the metal casting facility near Jane's new home could also contribute to these exposures.
The exposures confirm Jane's worst fears—that the children she's tasked with protecting are exposed to harmful chemicals simply because of where they live. But the impacts run deeper. The family seemingly cannot escape the effects of an industry that wields tremendous power in the state and is allowed to operate within 500 feet of schools and homes housing children and other vulnerable residents. Researchers warn the impacts extend to the more out-of-sight aspects of health—people's sleep, their social network, and their overall mental well being.
"I just wish there was more awareness that it really is dangerous for every family that lives here," Jane said. "It isn't as safe as we tend to want to make ourselves feel. This is proof."
Exposed
"We don't seem to be able to get away from this," Jane said.
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