Buffered from fracking but still battling pollution
WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. -- On a balmy evening in September of 2019, eight women gathered around a conference table in a small office about 25 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
Sunlight streamed through large windows, casting a warm glow over a side table set with coffee, biodegradable cutlery, and three kinds of pie.
"Eat pie, ladies," commanded a tall, middle- aged woman with silver-streaked hair.
As a mother of four and the outreach coordinator for the nonprofit organization hosting this event, Ann LeCuyer was comfortable telling people what to do. She'd spent the last four years helping the group, Protect PT* (short for Protect Penn-Trafford), work to keep fracking out of the small municipalities of Penn Township, Trafford, and surrounding neighborhoods.
In that time, Ann and her boss, Protect PT co-founder and executive director Gillian Graber, had compiled thousands of documents detailing the oil and gas industry's plans in the region. They'd invited all of the group's several dozen members to their office to learn how to access them-but only women showed up.
"This is pretty typical for us, actually" said Gillian, a middle-aged mom of two with chocolatebrown hair and a no-nonsense demeanor.
"I think it's because we're moms, so we have more at stake when it comes to our children and grandchildren," she told Environmental Health News (EHN), noting
that every member in attendance had kids and half also had grandkids. "My husband is on the board and we do have some very passionate male members. But it tends to be the women who consistently show up."
The group chattered and laughed through the presentation until Ann pulled up a map of the planned route for the Mariner East 2 Pipeline, sending a brief hush through the room.
"It's so close to my house!" someone exclaimed. "Look, I'm in the blast zone and I didn't even know until now."
Mariner East 2 is one of three pipelines ( along with Mariner East 1 and Mariner East 2X) being constructed to carry highly flammable natural gas liquids-liquid components of natural gas that have been separated out-350 miles from the Utica and Marcellus Shale plays in eastern Ohio, the northern panhandle of West Virginia, and across Pennsylvania to processing facilities at Philadelphia ports. From there, the end products will be carried overseas by ship for use in plastics production. (Ethane, a byproduct of fracking, is used to manufacture plastics.)
The project is orchestrated by Sunoco's parent company Energy Transfer LP, which also owns the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline. The Mariner East pipeline projects have been rife with accidents, spills, and controversy, in part because Pennsylvania doesn't have a state agency that oversees the placement of such pipelines. The planned route runs across people's yards and within a half mile of 23 public schools and 17 private schools, which worries residents due to the company's safety record: Between 2002 and the end of 2017, Energy Transfer LP pipelines experienced a leak or an accident every 11 days on average.
Pipeline construction in Pennsylvania has already resulted in sinkholes, polluted waterways on public land, and an explosion in a town 35 miles west of Pittsburgh that destroyed a house. At least 25 other sites along the proposed pipeline route have been identified as being at risk for similar accidents. The Pennsylvania Utility Commission is fighting in court to keep its calculations on potential damage if such accidents occured secret, even though a recent investigation by Spotlight PA found many communities in the "blast zone"-the areas adjacent to the pipeline that could be engulfed in flames in the event of a pipeline explosionlack adequate emergency response plans.
Gillian told the group that they planned to canvas in the blast zone nearby to inform residents they'd be at risk if the pipeline is completed.
"Oh, we're canvassing, ladies!" chirped the oldest of the group, a spry 81-year-old. "Ifwe can stop the pipeline, we can stop the well pads. I'm getting my muckboots out!"
Members of Protect PT, a nonprofit focused on educating community members and elected officials on unconventional natural gas development, gather in their Harrison City, Pennsylvania, headquarters. (Credit: Connor Mulvaney for Environmental Health News)
Gillian initially started Protect PT in 2015 because she wanted to stop a fracking well proposal about a quarter of a mile from her house in neighboring Penn Township. So far, her efforts have been successful-the well, which is owned by Apex Energy, received a permit from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2018, but has yet to be drilled in part because of Protect PT lawsuits.
But that fracking well victory is overshadowed by a vast industrial infrastructure in the state and the region that goes well beyond unconventional drilling.
In the summer of 2019, EHN collected air, water, and urine samples from five households in southwestern Pennsylvania, including Ann and Gillian's families, and had them analyzed for chemicals associated with fracking. EHN included Ann and Gillian's families because they live further away from fracking wells than the families we looked at in Washington County. However, despite their relative distance from fracking wells, we found they also faced above average levels of exposure to numerous chemicals associated with pollution from the oil and gas industry.
While Project PT and similar groups target new pipelines, or plastics plants, or fracking wells in court-or just the court of public opinion-it has become a game of whack-a-mole in a state where oil and gas production, infrastructure, and transportation are so ubiquitous.
"It's just alarming to think that with all the stuff that we're doing to be careful, we're still being exposed to all these chemicals," Gillian told EHN.
(Credit: Connor Mulvaney for Environmental Health News)
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Mar 01, 2021
Kristina Marusic
This is part 4 of our 4-part series, "Fractured," an investigation of fracking chemicals in the air, water, and people of western Pennsylvania.
Continued on page 60 ...