These health impacts affected communities in states with high oil and gas production, as well as states with limited or no gas activity, underscoring the need for comprehensive regulatory action to protect Americans from the contaminants. — Daily Science

Despite global efforts to transition from fossil fuels to clean energy, oil and gas (O&G) production is nearing record levels in the United States, raising concerns among health experts about what it means this O&G growth for air quality and human health. While there is extensive research on the climate effects of methane produced by oil and gas, a key contributor to air pollution, few studies have measured the health effects of air pollution generated by oil and gas activity.

A new study led by the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH), the University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment (UNC-IE), PSE Healthy Energy, and the Environmental Defense Fund fills this gap.

published in magazine Environmental Research: HealthThe study found that air pollution from the oil and gas sector in the United States has substantial adverse impacts on air quality, human health, and healthcare costs.

The findings show that the pollutants nitrogen oxide (NO2), fine particles (PM2.5) and ozone (O₃) of US oil and gas production contributed to an excess of 7,500 deaths, 410,000 asthma attacks, and 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma in the US, and gas production was responsible for $77 billion in annual health costs. For comparison, this total is three times the estimated climate impact costs of methane emissions from oil and gas operations.

These impacts were largely concentrated in areas with significant oil and gas production, such as southwestern Pennsylvania, Texas, and eastern Colorado. But the health effects also spilled over into densely populated cities with little or no gas activity, such as Chicago, New York City, Baltimore, Washington DC, and Orlando.

The study results suggest that oil and gas emissions reduction policies, such as the upcoming EPA methane regulations, can produce immediate and significant air quality benefits for human health along with significant climate benefits. The researchers urge policymakers to consider these “co-benefits” in future emissions reduction strategies. They also emphasize that strategies that focus on end-of-pipe pollution controls during combustion, such as in power plants, vehicles, buildings, and industry, are only addressing part of the problem.

“These substantial impacts from oil and gas production show that there are severe consequences across the entire oil and gas life cycle, from ‘well to wheels,’ ‘well to power plant,’ and ‘well to furnace,'” says the corresponding study. author Jonathan Buonocore, assistant professor of environmental health at BUSPH. “Health impacts are not just from burning oil and gas. For energy, air quality and decarbonization policies to successfully protect health, they must incorporate health impacts throughout this life cycle. complete”.

The five states with the largest impacts from oil and gas pollution were Texas, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Louisiana, which all had significant oil and gas activity. However, Illinois and New York (states that produce very little oil and gas) still ranked 6th.^he and 8^he places.

“The fact that air pollution and health impacts cross state borders indicates a great need for regional to national coordination,” says the study’s lead author, Saravanan Arunachalam, a research professor at UNC-IE. “The states with the highest emissions are not necessarily the ones with the highest health risk from these emissions, although Texas ranks first for both.”

New to this modeling framework is the inclusion of the health impacts of NO₂, and the use of an advanced model that better captures the chemistry of emissions from the oil and gas sector. Among the three pollutants, NO2 was the largest contributor to overall health impacts, producing 37 percent of these effects, followed by ozone at 35 percent and PM2.5 at 28 percent. The vast majority of these effects related to mortality. NO2 contributes to the formation of PM2.5 and ozone, so strategies to reduce NO2 produced by oil and gas could be effective in reducing health impacts. State regulations that address NO2 precursor emissions from the oil and gas sector could help mitigate childhood asthma in communities living near emission sources and provide secondary ozone and PM2 health benefits. 5 in downwind areas.

“Reducing oil and gas emissions is one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to reduce methane and other air pollutants, which improves air quality, protects public health, and slows climate change,” says study co-author , Ananya Roy, EDF Senior Health Scientist: “It is critical that the US Environmental Protection Agency strengthen and finalize its proposed rules on methane from oil and gas as soon as possible. These proposed rules should build on state-leading approaches in Colorado and New Mexico and go further to end pollution from the practice of routine burning.”

The authors say that future studies should focus on learning more about the health impacts throughout the full life cycle of oil and gas production, as well as the benefits of additional oil and gas pollution control strategies. gas.

“There are technologies and strategies in place to reduce methane leaks, emissions from compressor stations, or emissions from other sources such as ponds and dehydrators,” says Buonocore. “Each of these strategies will have different effects on the levels of different pollutants that are emitted.”

There is also more work to be done to quantify the health impacts of emissions that the study did not examine, such as benzene and formaldehyde, Arunachalam notes. “Exposure to these pollutants that have been detected near oil and gas wells can cause cancer and various other adverse health impacts, and quantifying them will demonstrate even greater public health benefits from controlling emissions from this sector.”