Photo by Ed Lallo
Drilling Rig
West Texas Drilling Rig at Sunset
For the past 35 years, the Shepherd Express has worked with Project Censored to help get these important, yet seldom reported, stories out to the American people. We have great respect for the researchers and reporters at Project Censored and are privileged to be able to work with them.
From Dec. 11-15 and Dec. 18-22, we will post the Top 10 censored stories in countdown order, starting with 10 and working up to #1.
8. Proximity to Oil and Gas Extraction Sites Linked to Maternal Health Risks and Childhood Leukemia
“Two epidemiological studies, from 2021 and 2022, provide new evidence that living near oil and gas extraction sites is hazardous to human health,” Project Censored reports, “especially for pregnant mothers and children, as reported by Nick Cunningham for DeSmog and Tom Perkins for The Guardian.”
Based on 1996–2009 data for more than 2.8 million pregnant women in Texas, researchers from Oregon State University (OSU) found that “for those pregnant women within one kilometer of drilling there’s about a 5 percent increase in odds of gestational hypertension, and 26 percent increase odds of eclampsia,” researcher Mary Willis told DeSmog. “So, it’s this really close range where we are seeing a potential impact right on women’s health.”
Eclampsia is a rare but serious condition in which high blood pressure results in seizures during pregnancy. “Notably, the data in the OSU study predate the widespread development of ‘fracking,’ or hydraulic fracturing, the process of extracting gas and oil from shale beds by injecting fluids at high pressure,” Project Censored pointed out.
The second study, from Yale, did examine fracking. It found that “Young children living near fracking wells at birth [less than two kilometers (approximately 1.2 miles)] are up to three times more likely to later develop leukemia,” according to an August 2022 Guardian story. “Hundreds of chemicals linked to cancer and other health issues may be used in the [fracking] process, including heavy metals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, benzene and radioactive material.”
The study, based on 2009-2017 data from Pennsylvania, compared 405 children aged 2–7 diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia with an additional 2,080 children, matched on birth year, who didn’t have leukemia.
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The findings aligned with others, as DeSmog discussed. “One consistent takeaway from so many health studies related to fracking is that proximity is key,” they reported. “The allowable setback in Pennsylvania, where our study was conducted, is 500 feet,” Yale researcher Cassandra Clark told them. “Our findings ... in conjunction with evidence from numerous other studies, suggest that existing setback distances are insufficiently protective of children’s health.”
State and local governments have tried to create health buffer zones, but “The oil industry has consistently fought hard to block setback distance requirements,” DeSmog reported. For example, “In 2018, the oil industry spent upwards of $40 million to defeat a Colorado ballot measure that would have imposed 2,500-foot setback requirements for drillers.” Regulations are so weak that “In Texas, drilling sites can be as close as 45 meters from residences,” Willis told them.
“Last year, California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced new proposed rules that would require 3,200-foot setbacks on new oil and gas drilling, which would be the strongest in the nation and aligns with the distance where Willis’s studies find the most serious risks for pregnancies,” DeSmog reported. “But those rules would not affect existing wells.”
No major U.S. newspapers appear to have covered either the OSU or the Yale study at the time of Project Censored’s publication, although “Smithsonian magazine, The Hill and WHYY, an NPR affiliate serving the Philadelphia region, covered the fracking study.”
