Governor Tom Wolf didn’t want to see the young children dressed as the Lorax who visited his office in 2019 to deliver a petition calling on him and state legislators to uphold the environmental rights enshrined in Article 1, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania constitution. He eventually relented and posed for some photos with the children. Within months of that visit, some of those children discovered that they had alarming levels of chemicals associated with fracking in their bodies.
Today, Environmental Health News released the findings of its two-year investigation into exposures of families in southwestern Pennsylvania to fracking chemicals called Fractured: The Body Burden of Living near Fracking. The chilling results in the reporting by Kristina Marusic show that families living near fracking operations have alarming levels of chemicals like xylene, ethylbenzene, styrene, toluene, and others in their bodies, in their air, and in their water.
Last week, Governor Wolf and the other Delaware River Basin Commissioners banned fracking in the basin. The resolution they passed states, “As the scientific and technical literature and the reports, studies, findings and conclusions of other government agencies reviewed by the Commission have documented, and as the more than a decade of experience with high volume hydraulic fracturing in regions outside the Delaware River Basin have evidenced, despite the dissemination of industry best practices and government regulation, high volume hydraulic fracturing and related activities have adversely impacted surface water and groundwater resources, including sources of drinking water, and have harmed aquatic life in some regions where these activities have been performed.”
In other words, the Commissioners looked to the experience of the Lorax kids, their families, and the other families in EHN’s report, as well as many other families, including some who are demanding action on the spike in rare cancers in young people first reported months after Team Lorax occupied the Governor’s office.
The infuriating part is that the Commissioners announced their intention to ban fracking in 2017, two years before events of 2019. They had sufficient evidence then, when only about 700 studies had been done. Today’s report from EHN is the latest contribution to a body of research that now totals about 2,000 studies.
How much more evidence does Governor Wolf need to provide the same protection to Pennsylvanians in the shale fields he was prepared to provide to people in the Delaware River Basin four years ago?