The 20 miles of interstate
highway between the small towns of Silt and Parachute in western
Colorado slice through a landscape of sagebrush and mesas. There
are few exits through this section of Garfield County, where the
local population of deer and elk rivals the number of ranchers,
retirees and others who live here.
Susan Haire, 55 and a
small-scale rancher, lived on top of one of the surrounding mesas
for nearly a decade, but she says that in the last year, the
landscape turned against her. When she drove down this stretch of
highway, her nose bled, her eyes burned and her head pounded. She
began wearing a respirator to clean the air in her car.
“I felt like an alien, like I didn’t fit into my own environment,”
says Haire. “It’s horrifying what’s happening here. The changes
that have happened in the past 18 months are so dramatic, it’s just
a nightmare.”
Haire’s doctor blamed her ill health on the
changes that occurred around her: In the last two years, gas
companies have drilled over 600 natural gas wells. Every few feet,
150-foot-tall drill rigs — all flying American flags —
rise upwards into the sky. Banks of rectangular huts with five-foot
diameter fans sit back from the road, pumping and moving the gas
into underground pipelines.
Haire’s experience isn’t
unique. Veteran oil and gas lawyer Lance Astrella of Denver, who
has built a career fighting the industry on behalf of citizens,
says he has talked with dozens of people who blame their health
problems on the surge of new gas wells. Between January and March
of this year, eight people called the Garfield County oil and gas
department to complain about air quality. They asked about black
smoke and strong chemical odors that they worried could make them
sick.
Critics say health hazards from the wells don’t
stop with air pollution. They point to a process called hydraulic
fracturing, whereby a gas company injects into the ground a mix of
water, sand and chemicals that include carcinogens such as benzene,
arsenic and lead. Developed by Halliburton, hydraulic fracturing,
commonly called “frac’ing,” loosens the rock and maximizes the flow
of gas to the surface. But up to 40 percent of the fracturing
fluids remains in the formation, according to studies conducted by
the Environmental Protection Agency and the oil and gas industry.
That means that toxic fluids could seep into the surrounding soil,
groundwater and into water wells.
In Garfield County,
there are at least 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the
tight sand and coal bed formations below, according to gas
companies and industry geologists. Over the next eight years, over
10,000 additional wells are slated for drilling in the county.
Today, federal and state agencies in Wyoming, Colorado and New
Mexico are issuing more permits to drill for gas than ever before,
and doing it as quickly as possible, under orders from Washington.
The Bush administration says finding energy at home is critical to
reducing foreign imports and ensuring national security, and in the
aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Congress has pushed to increase
energy sources beyond the reach of the coastline.
Despite
the potential for health problems from unregulated pollution,
neither the Centers for Disease Control nor the Environmental
Protection Agency is conducting long-term public health studies
connected to all this drilling. So no one knows how natural gas
development may be polluting the air or water or affecting human
health.
In the meantime, Haire — who just moved to
Texas for her health — and the neighbors she left behind,
aren’t lone voices: In 2004, a group of 18 top public health
experts alerted the EPA and Interior Department officials that
accelerated oil and gas drilling in the West was taking place
without adequate regard for human health. The warning was not
heeded.
One agency staffer, who plans to retire soon,
speaks out bluntly: “It’s a catch-22: If the EPA doesn’t study the
health impacts, then there’s no proof anything dangerous happening
is happening. That’s irrational and corrupt,” says Wes Wilson, an
environmental engineer with the EPA’s Denver office for the past 32
years. He calls his agency’s position sad: “We used to investigate
mysteries and now we’re not. It’s kind of like we’re being paid off
with our generous salaries. The American public would be shocked if
they knew we (at EPA) make six figures, and we basically sit around
and do nothing.”
Rebecca Clarren is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High
Country News (hcn.org). She writes about health and
environmental issues in Portland, Oregon.
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