The high levels of oil and gas production in Garfield County may be poisoning the air and water in the region, but there isn’t enough scientific information to know for sure.
That was one of the conclusions in a Sept. 15 white paper sponsored by the National Resources Defense Council and produced by a team of doctors and public health specialists at the University of Colorado at Denver and the Colorado School of Public Health in Denver.
“The available data and lines of evidence indicate that there is an acute problem with toxic emissions of uncertain proportions and a possible emergent problem for the health of citizens of Garfield County,” the report concludes.
The white paper, called “Potential Exposure-Related Human Health Effects of Oil and Gas Development,” was a review of existing studies and scientific literature about air and water pollution in Garfield County as a result of the intense oil and gas production now under way.
As of April 7, there were 4,521 active wells in Garfield County. And so far this year, 2,000 new drilling permits have been issued by the Colorado Oil and Gas Commission for wells in Garfield County.
“Even the preliminary studies have shown that there are chemicals in the environment that could be hazardous and more study is needed,” said Dr. Roxana Witter, the lead author of the study.
The white paper called for a much higher level of information to be developed about pollutants from oil and gas drilling, especially as earlier studies detected high levels of benzene in the air in some Garfield County locations. Benzene is a known carcinogen.
“Given that even limited air and water quality studies revealed dangerous levels of benzene and other chemicals of potential concern, continued ignorance of the status of the air and water quality and the potential health impacts in Garfield County should not be considered acceptable,” the paper concluded.
Jim Rada, the environmental health manager for Garfield County, said the county is actively monitoring air quality at two oil and gas production sites and two urban locations and cautioned citizens not be to overly alarmed by the white paper’s findings.
“The samples that we’ve gathered indicate there is a low level of benzene in the air, although we have not been able to pinpoint the source,” Rada said. “Just because you see benzene in a 10-second sample doesn’t mean we have an imminent health issue. I’m not able to say it presents as dramatic a risk as Dr. Witter has put it in her paper. It is not like we’re breathing benzene constantly. It is at low, or extremely low, concentrations. We are not in a mist or cloud of it.”
But it is not hard to find people who will say they can smell the gas fields while living in the vicinity of drilling rigs or driving through the county.
Garfield County is now taking air samples at four locations every six days to monitor for benzene and other pollutants. It is also monitoring for a group of chemical compounds known as “carbonyls” twice a month. It is monitoring for ozone in partnership with the state. And it is tracking the amount of dust and small airborne particulates called PM-10 and PM-2.5.
“We have a pretty extensive monitoring program going on here,” Rada said.
But Dr. Witter said “it is very difficult to find data” and “there was not a lot of systemically collected data” available in the public arena.
And that’s why, Amy Mall, a senior policy analyst with the NRDC, said “health impact assessments” should be included in more federal documents that address oil and gas permits, such as the resource management plan currently being updated by the Bureau of Land Management.
The governments of Pitkin County, Eagle County, Glenwood Springs, Rifle and New Castle have urged the BLM to include a health impact assessment in its planning effort.
“We think government agencies need more information to make good decisions,” Mall said. “And the public needs more information. People are just desperate for more good information.”
And while Rada defends Garfield County’s ongoing work on monitoring air quality, he concedes that there is very little, if any, monitoring being done on regional water quality issues.
Some studies have been conducted where citizens have expressed specific concerns about water quality, but Rada knew of no monitoring being done on water in the Colorado River between New Castle and Cameo to see if chemicals used in natural gas production were reaching the river.
“I think we all understand that there is a serious lack of data on the Colorado River,” Rada said.
The white paper backs him up.
It concludes that “there are no plans for comprehensive and systematic monitoring of surface and subsurface waters” and that “water monitoring must occur and results made public, in order to protect human health.”
Rada also points out that the state of Colorado is the agency that regulates oil and gas drilling and that it is also responsible for monitoring and enforcing air and water regulations.
But that can be difficult for the state as well.
As the white paper points out, “oil and gas exploration and production activities have been exempted from standards created to protect health under a number of federal statues, including provisions of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (the Superfund Act), and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act (the Toxics Release Inventory). These laws are designed to protect the health of the American population by ensuring clean air and water.”
When asked why the state doesn’t stop approving well drilling permits in Garfield County until it can be determined if there are negative health effects, Trési Houpt, who sits on the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, said, “I have heard from the state that there is not enough data to determine what is a nuisance and what is a health threat.
“We know it is a nuisance because people have nosebleeds and headaches, or they faint or they pass out. And it’s not there hasn’t been an attempt to figure out the impacts, but we can’t just stop at one study. We have to build a database so we can assess the impacts.”
Houpt is also a Garfield County commissioner.
“I think our public health department is doing a great job with the resources that they have, but I would like to increase those resources and make sure that we are taking the lead in affecting the type of data that is collected as we continue to see energy development grow in Garfield County,” Houpt said.
Doug Hock, the spokesman for EnCana, one of the largest energy production companies working in Garfield County, said the company supported more environmental monitoring.
“We would always support more data and sampling,” Hock said. “Too much of the time, public policy decisions are based on anecdotes. We always support scientific data.”
Hoch also conceded energy production was not completely benign.
“There are certainly impacts,” Hoch said. “But are we endangering public health? No, we don’t believe we are.”
The white paper is available online at http://docs.nrdc.org/health.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
