Ask HN: How close is too close to live to a large fracking operation?

13 pointsMarketingJason1y ago6 comments

Auroa, Co. We've been fighting a proposed fracking operation (160 wells on 10 large pads) for a year since it was proposed shortly after our moving into the neighborhood. Ultimately, the application will likely pass and operations will commence. The nearest well will be just over a 1 mile away with most between 1-3 miles and it's likely some wells will drill under us.

My wife is deeply concerned for our family's health - mostly about the VOCs. She's ready to move as soon as the plan is approved. I'm a bit more willing to wait it out a bit and judge the impacts before taking that step. I can accept a dip in home value, a bit of traffic, noise, risks to ground water, etc. However, when all we see is articles about respiratory issues, skin cancer, etc it's harder to justify staying.

The issue is if I search for anything related to health and proximity to fracking operations, it's all very negative. There is one study (https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/ehp.1307732) I found that compares health effects from <1km with <2km but it's hard to see the baseline since it doesn't really compare <2km with >2km which would better reflect our situation at being 1-2 miles away.

Would anyone be able to share any authoritative information or studies that more directly relate to our proximity regarding health effects?

6 comments

smarm521y ago

> How close is too close to live to a large fracking operation?

Yes.

As you can imagine there's not a lot of work on that, since that's a very profitable industry with a lot of reach. But here's something:

Meng, Q. (2015). Spatial analysis of environment and population at risk of natural gas fracking in the state of Pennsylvania, USA. Science of the Total Environment, 515, 198-206.

> The high, moderate, and low risk levels are defined according to distances less than 1 km, 1 to 2 km, and 2 to 3 km to fracking wells.

The sciencedirect article is abridged, but scihub has a copy.

Then you might want to check through the papers that cite it:

https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cites=1835293133068512810...

But these stood out:

Meng, Q. (2017). The impacts of fracking on the environment: A total environmental study paradigm. Science of the Total Environment, 580, 953-957.

Chowkwanyun, M. (2023). Environmental justice: where it has been, and where it might be going. Annual Review of Public Health, 44, 93-111.

Lu, H., Kang, Y., Liu, L., & Li, J. (2019). Comprehensive groundwater safety assessment under potential shale gas contamination based on integrated analysis of reliability–resilience–vulnerability and gas migration index. Journal of Hydrology, 578, 124072.

solardev1y ago

Get out of there unless you want to be the next Erin Brokovich. You're going to end up with various diseases that aren't caught until too late. Groundwater contamination is no joke. You'll be poisoning yourself every day you live in the area. The fracking company has a very strong incentive to downplay health effects and if you want anything to be done you'll have to organize a class action lawsuit, with the entire oil and gas industry fighting you. It's a no win situation.

specto1y ago

The thing is, your drinking water in Aurora already comes from reservoirs in other parts of the state that have been fracking for years. Basically if you don't like fracking, you can't live in Colorado.

MarketingJasonOP1y ago

I understand and grudgingly accept the risk to the drinking water. My concern is the airborne pollutants (carbon from the generators, expelled gases, VOCs) that are a certainty and how proximity relates - how close is too close.

tanseydavid1y ago

VOC = Volatile Organic Compound (I had to look it up)

runjake1y ago

Link: https://www.lung.org/clean-air/indoor-air/indoor-air-polluta...

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