A recent story appeared in the Los Angeles Times, which depicts my current home city of Vernal Utah with some distaste. It is a story pitting a local mid-wife Donna Young with the local crazy pro-oil guy who holds up a sign at the eastern part of town that reads “Honk, if you love drilling.” The headline reads “Utah oil town turns against midwife who asked about infant deaths.”

The story details how Young noticed an increase in infant mortality in the city cemetery in 2013, and its possible link to the oil and gas drilling activity in the region. The story was picked up by Bill Moyers, and a number of other news sources.

But the story really does not go into detail on this link between oil and increased infant mortality nor does it highlight the hard work of many scientists, and a whole community who are working hard to uncover clues to understand the public health risk of living in one of the richest regions of oil and natural gas in the United States. The story itself is much more interesting, and details how little we know about the air we breathe. It is also a story about how a community in a small rural town is coming together to address these issues, setting up a network of monitoring tools, and thinking of solutions to the environmental problems that its faces. The story is not about a town outraged at single individual, but about a community of people working toward uncovering the links to these deaths and looking for solutions.

The story I will tell is of civically minded individuals in a rural community working hard to address a complex environmental issue. It is a story that will take us far from Utah, from downtown Los Angeles, to iPad factories in China, to the wood stoves of Norway. It’s a story that will leave us with many remaining questions.

 

Our story first begins in 2009, when my second daughter was born at Ashley Medical Center in Vernal Utah. She was a healthy baby, and we were overjoyed at the great fortune to have a new member to the family. We had moved to Vernal, so that I may work in the oil fields as a geologist and paleontologist. I am extremely grateful for the birth of my daughter, and in writing this story can’t imagine the grief that comes from losing a child. Every day I’m grateful to have her in my life.

Also in 2009, the science of what was happening to the air in northeastern Utah was beginning to be uncovered. Russell Schnell, a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), led a study published in Nature Geoscience on the air quality in Pinedale, Wyoming north of the Jonah and Pinedale Anticline gas fields. The scientists at NOAA had discovered extremely high levels of ozone in the air, similar to high levels recorded from the urban centers like downtown Los Angeles, yet Pinedale only has a population of about 2,000 people.

The ozone molecule is built of three atoms of oxygen, unlike normal oxygen in the air, which is built of two atoms. Ozone is a tiny component of the atmosphere, and in the stratosphere 17 miles above Earth it acts as a sunblock, preventing harmful UV rays of light from penetrating the atmosphere. But near the surface, where people breathe the air, ozone is harmful and causes respiratory illness, such as asthma, and has been linked to heart disease. In cities elevated ozone in the air occurs on the hottest days of the year, yet Russell Schnell found that the highest levels of ozone in Pinedale occurred in the middle of the winter on the coldest days. The highest levels the team recorded was above 140 parts per billion (ppb), above the 75 ppb safe level. The ozone in Wyoming resulted from several different factors: 1) methane (and other volatile organic compounds) released from gas production, 2) temperature inversions where cold air is trapped in low laying topography, 3) heavy snow on the ground, which reflects sunlight and helps to produce ozone.

With that publication, the alarm was called on the elevated amounts of ozone in oil and gas fields in the United States, and everyone looked toward the south, to the Uinta Basin of Utah home to over 250,000 gas wells, and about 50,000 people. Researchers were quick to discover high levels of ozone near the town of Ouray, Utah right in the heart of Utah’s oil and gas fields. In 2011, plans were made for a large scale monitoring of air quality in the Uinta Basin, south of Vernal Utah. NOAA, as well as many scientists at Utah State University and the University of Colorado, including many colleagues of mine at the Uintah Basin Campus of Utah State University located in Vernal Utah. All these researchers were a piece of a large scale study of the air above the oil and gas fields of the Uinta Basin beginning in 2011-2012.

The results were somewhat surprising; ozone levels although high did not break above the 75 ppb safe level during the cold January and February days. 2012 proved to be a mild winter, and little snow fell that year, hence, one of the factors that contributes to high ozone (the reflective properties of snow), was missing. But researchers were prepared for 2013. Besides measuring for ozone, the scientists were also measure methane, and other volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Methane and VOCs are the major component of natural gas, and what companies make their money on. The large study also made an important discovery; a percentage of natural gas in the field was escaping. These estimates came from the research of atmospheric scientist Mark Mansfield, here in Vernal, who has been modeling the atmosphere above the Uinta Basin based on the measurements taken by NOAA. Companies took notice, since it indicated inefficiency in capturing natural gas, and a loss of revenue for the companies.

Mining natural gas is not as easy as mining a solid like coal; it requires massively large vacuums to suck the gas out of the rocks. Powered by giant compressors, these well pads are capped by a network of vacuum pipes that suck the gas out of the ground. What the researchers discovered within this network of pipes, well pads, and storage units, 10 to 14% of the natural gas was escaping. The Uinta Basin is huge about twice as big as the state of Rhodes Island. In this vast tangle of well pads, pipes and compressor stations, natural gas was escaping to the atmosphere.

2013 proved to be a much colder winter, with abundant snow cover. And as the researchers predicted ozone was much more elevated in 2013, than in 2012. On cold, snowy, windless days in January and February ozone levels reached 150 ppb, well above the 75 ppb safe level. It was particularly bad in the low canyons, and low areas, where temperature inversions are common. In addition to higher ozone levels, the researchers found high values of methane and VOCs.
VOCs (short for Volatile Organic Compounds) are, as their name suggests, combustible gases. Some of these combustible gases you may be familiar with, they include propane, butane, and other large molecules of combustible gases resulting from chains of carbon and hydrogen. These are heavy gas molecules, which tend to sink in low areas. They are a natural product of oil and gas production, and represent natural gas components that evaded capture by production companies and escape into the atmosphere.

There is one particular VOC that maybe linked to higher infant mortality in Utah. Benzene. Benzene is a ring of carbon and hydrogen, and if you do a Google search of Benzene you will find out it is some bad stuff. First it causes cancer, particularly leukemia (cancer of the bone) and adversely affects the autoimmune system. Because of this Benzene should be zero in a safe atmosphere. The State of California has a low safe level of 500 ppb in air. In the Uinta Basin, benzene was found in high concentrations up to 12 ppb, typical fresh air will have levels below 1 ppb.
Despite this fact benzene is found in many natural things, including smoke. Benzene has been found in high concentration above burning firewood, and wood burning stoves. Reaching unhealthy levels of 10,000 ppb! In Norway, and cold regions of Europe exposure to benzene is high, as many individuals utilize wood burning stoves. Yes, this is a major reason for you not to breathe in wood smoke, but for smokers, high levels of benzene are also found in cigarettes and any smoke inhaled from the burning of organic matter. Benzene is one of the cancer causing ingredients of cigarettes. A single cigarette exposes you to 10,000 ppb of benzene. Benzene is sweet smelling gas, and a feature of many gasoline fuels. When you fuel up at a gas station, you are exposed to around 1,000 ppb of benzene vapors, although gasoline is regulated in the amount of benzene it can contain.

But there is another effect of benzene that maybe linked to high infant mortality found in Vernal. In 2010, Chinese and American scientists undertook a study of factory workers exposed to elevated amounts of benzene (about 8,000 ppb for 8 hours) on a daily basis and compared these workers to workers that worked in factories which did not use benzene. The results not only suggested high rates of leukemia, but an increase in aneuploidy of sperm cells from men working in the factory. Aneuploidy is when the cells dividing to form the sex gametes fail to split into even units of chromosomes. Aneuploidy leads to increases in chromosomal disorders, such as Klinefelter, Turner syndromes, Triple X and X-Y-Y chromosomes. Hence, there are studies that show a link between exposures to benzene at levels as low as 1,000 ppb can adversely effect sperm production, which results in an increase in chromosomal issues that could lead to higher infant mortality. In China there has been huge public outcry over benzene, and when it was discovered that workers building Apple’s iPhone and iPad were among the exposed, consumers joined in the outcry. U.S. companies with factories in China had to quickly scramble to ban benzene. Many companies, including Apple have issued statements to ban benzene from factories in 2014.

In the Uinta Basin the amount of benzene (5-12 ppb) was not near the high levels found in Chinese factories (1,000 to 8,000 ppb), but elevated amounts in ambient air suggested their maybe higher levels of benzene that workers in Utah were being exposed to. The question was where?

With the increased snow fall in 2013, high levels of ozone, and VOCs (including benzene), Donna Young observations maybe correct, and with the more mild winter of 2014 and 2015 infant mortality for the city may fade. In the meantime, a growing group of scientists are tracking down any pockets of higher than average VOCs in the oil and gas fields of Utah. Carsten Warneke and his team at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) and NOAA have been driving a specially outfitted van measuring VOCs on various well pads within the Uinta Basin. Their 2014 study, shows that the amount of VOCs various across a typical well pad, with high levels downwind of the condensate tanks. Condensate tanks are where waste water and water soluble organic matter such as VOCs are stored before removal. In oil producing wells, there is also a crude oil tank. These tanks have to be emptied by workers, with the waste water transported in trucks to evaporation ponds. Companies would rather re-inject this waste water in the subsurface, but government regulations prohibit this injection over fears of ground water contamination. The Utah Geological Survey has undertaken in-depth studies of the basin’s aquifers in the hope to pressure federal regulators to allow waste water injection in the basin. In the meanwhile, waste waters (containing benzene) accumulate in evaporation ponds, which are confined to private land, often much closer to the homes of local citizens.

Three scientists at Utah State University’s Uintah Basin campus, Jordan Evans, Seth Lyman and Mark Mansfield have recently begun sampling the air around these waste ponds (also called produced water) for VOCs. Their preliminary results presented at the American Geophysical Union meetings in 2013, show high levels of benzene and other VOCs above the un-frozen waste water ponds (150 mg/m2 in an hour), which depending on the percent of benzene, is equivalent to the amount of benzene workers in Chinese factories were exposed to.

Governments and citizens are coming to the conclusion that better monitoring of oil and gas fields is a necessary precaution for oil companies, local businesses, citizens and the workers who risk their lives in producing cheap energy. The moral to this story is that we can’t just ignore the changes that we make to our environment. The solution to this problem is going to take some creativity, to limit exposure to ozone and VOCs, such as benzene. Hundreds of evaporation ponds dot the Utah landscape, the federal government needs to allow more re-injection of waste water, while scientists need to determine the environmental risks, and work to provide better worker safety to their fellow citizens. In the end it is about a community coming together to face a challenge. Of course, laws need to be passed to limit the growth of waste water disposal facilities and funding for better monitoring of the air surrounding these installations. Companies need to work toward better efficiently in recovering natural gas, and establishing a better system to handle waste waters.