On Thursday, environmental health groups and community members from Pavillion, Wyoming released the first study of its kind linking chemicals released from gas and oil production sites to those in bodies of residents living near the wells.
In the town of 240 residents and another 200 living east of the town, community members have railed against the EPA and state agencies to act on fracking activities in their communities for years. This report, however, is the first to track air pollutants from the gas wells in the residents themselves.
The report found that residents who live near the gas sites have a higher amount of the chemicals in their urine than the general population. Scientists focused on how oil and gas fields can pollute the air and how that pollution ends up in humans living nearby. That’s a point Wilma Subra, president of the Subra Company involved in the study, and other leaders in the study have been emphasizing.
“If you have contaminated air, you have no choice but to breathe it,” Subra, who has worked on environmental health research across the country, told ThinkProgress. “That’s why it is so important to help citizens understand the quality of the air they are breathing.”