industry & reform tight gas mining should not be overlooked in the assessment of the likely costs of the industry’ s development in Australia or in decision-making.
industry & reform tight gas mining should not be overlooked in the assessment of the likely costs of the industry’ s development in Australia or in decision-making.
“ Rural residents need to be supported to access and interpret the best and most current evidence regarding the multiple health concerns associated with unconventional gas mining,” the report states.
Nursing Review sits down with Haswell to find out more about what studies are telling us about the connections between unconventional gas mining and human health, and what concerned health professionals can do.
NR: Where did you gather this information from? MH: I started by looking closely into unconventional gas mining in health literature back in 2012 when there was a proposal to drill wells in Sydney’ s water catchment area, where I was living at the time. At that point, it was very easy to do a review and find most of the papers that were published.
However, between 2013 and 2015, there were approximately 685 publications in peer-reviewed journals addressing health concerns in the industry. So it got harder and harder to keep my head above water in terms of the new information that was coming.
This paper comes from just keeping a constant eye on the literature, looking at papers that were particularly bringing in new concerns and more quality studies. The physicians, scientists and engineers who [ lead the ] Healthy Energy Initiative in the US keep a database of all publications, at least as many as they can. They did a summary of that evidence up to the end of 2015. They looked at what proportion were saying“ It’ s okay, there are no worries” and the proportion that were bringing in new information and new data that was actually indicating problems, whether it was air, pollution, water concerns, or public health impacts.
This database is publicly available, and anyone can go and gain access to those publications. There’ s also been some quite rigorous reports done, particularly the New York Compendium, which has been published regularly, where they compile scientific, medical and media findings around concerns and risks. They just came out with their fourth compendium in November.
In Australia, I think we are starting to get ourselves on the map in terms of good research. There’ s quite a bit in sociology of rural areas, which was not covered in this review, but it certainly is adding to concerns around what happens to rural communities when the industry comes to town. It’ s part of quite a long-term commitment to keeping up with the literature and also being in a group with the Doctors for the Environment Australia. We frequently share papers that are of particular relevance within the group.
You said while it’ s too late for a cautionary approach for millions of people living close to these operations, public health professionals can support rural residents and decisionmakers to avoid, limit or address these potential harms. What can healthcare professionals concerned about this and the other issues laid out in the article do to help rural Australians? We are at a stage where the industry is in an infancy [ period ] apart from in the Darling Downs of Queensland and areas around there. Different states and territories either have or are currently undertaking reviews. Initially it was the NSW government in 2013, where the chief scientists and engineer did an extensive review at that time and they listened to community members – though not as much of listening to health professionals as we would have wished. But that report, I think, was a good model for the time; however, it was done in 2013, and so it’ s very out of date in terms of what we now know from research studies.
Western Australia has conducted a review that was very limited to only hydraulic fracturing. They determined that it was all okay. Health professionals in that case can say,“ No, there are many aspects of the industry that raise issues of concern,” and actually put that information out there, contribute it to government processes, etc.
They can also join the Public Health Association of Australia or the Climate and Health Alliance, [ there are also nursing groups ] as well as allied health groups, as well as university and doctors that respond to government inquiries, etc, to get this information forward.
In Victoria, their review of the industry led them to actually put in a ban. They decided that the risks and the proof that regulation will protect Victorians from unconventional gas mining wasn’ t sufficient, so they have actually put a ban in. I think a lot of that is because the attorney general listened to health professionals and did the homework regarding the kind of information presented in the paper. South Australia, the initial inquiry report, which Doctors for the Environment Australia made a submission to, and I made a presentation working side by side with some farmers and local health professionals. We brought these forward in the inquiry. So I think we can get this information, and we can digest it so we can work in terms of whether the industry is appropriate or not, or safe or not for a particular area.
In terms of limiting, so if the green light does go ahead, we’ re there in terms of what things need to be [ put in place as harm reduction measures ] or by knowledge of knowing what can go wrong with health, trying to ensure wells aren’ t too close to houses and making sure the mental health issues, the community issues are taken care of, as best is possible anyway.
Then there are places like the Darling Downs, where it is already there. It is already impacting people. [ Now that the transition from no industry into a boom in the development phase is over ] a lot of the negatives of the industry are now becoming part of everyday life.
I think we need to really understand what’ s going on there, how people are being impacted at this stage and be able to call for the different sorts of monitoring of potential exposures. Also paying attention to perhaps if people come in with symptoms, noting where they live and asking what sort of activities were happening at wells around them. What about their neighbours? And so on. Those sort of localised studies that actually involve community residents would go a long way to help people deal with the fact that their lives are really quite profoundly changed.
In what other ways do you hope this information is used? Who should take note of the concerns laid out in the article? Well, certainly our decision-makers. It’ s very easy to look at one sliver of this information and go,“ Oh, no. That’ s okay, the water will be okay,” or looking at individual aspects.
But I think these impacts cross so widely into many different areas that [ it is vital to ] have everything in the equation when we decide [ whether this is ] going to be a positive step for a community, or if it is going to [ result in ] some people winning and many people actually losing.
To me, I would very much like to see decisions being made at the top with public health professionals, with people from the communities, right at that decision-making table, rather than gloss over the uncertainty of the research to actually say,“ Well, we need to prove this research to be wrong before we know it’ s safe.” We’ re certainly not in that space at all. ■ nursingreview. com. au | 9