{"id":34503,"date":"2014-02-18T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2014-02-18T14:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=34503"},"modified":"2014-02-19T15:41:59","modified_gmt":"2014-02-19T21:41:59","slug":"investigation-highlights-toxic-air-emissions-in-fracking-fields","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/02\/18\/investigation-highlights-toxic-air-emissions-in-fracking-fields\/","title":{"rendered":"Investigation Highlights Toxic Air Emissions In Fracking Fields"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_34536\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"Flaring at a well in Brazos County, Texas.\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/02\/Brazos-Co.-037.jpg\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-34536\" alt=\"Flaring at a well in Brazos County, Texas.\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/02\/Brazos-Co.-037-300x196.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/02\/Brazos-Co.-037-300x196.jpg 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2014\/02\/Brazos-Co.-037-620x405.jpg 620w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\"> <\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Flaring at a well in Brazos County, Texas.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The fracking boom that has brought jobs and money to rural parts of South Texas has also brought potentially life-threatening air pollution.\u00a0That\u2019s according to a<a href=\"http:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/news\/20140218\/fracking-boom-spews-toxic-air-emissions-texas-residents\"> joint investigation<\/a> out today from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.publicintegrity.org\/\">Center for Public Integrity<\/a>, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.weather.com\/\">Weather Channel<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/insideclimatenews.org\/\">Inside Climate News<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The report found that toxic chemicals like benzene and hydrogen sulfide are being emitted in increasing amounts in the Eagle Ford Shale area of South Texas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s as if you\u2019d took a big oil refinery that you\u2019d find in Houston and plopped it down in the middle of rural Karnes County, Texas,&#8221; Jim Morris, a reporter for the non-profit Center for Public Integrity, tells StateImpact Texas. The findings came from a review of state air pollution permits.<\/p>\n<p>The investigation comes on the heels of an analysis, <a href=\"http:\/\/news.sciencemag.org\/earth\/2014\/02\/natural-gas-coal-good-climate-trade-despite-leaks-researchers-argue?rss=1\">published recently in Science Magazine<\/a>, that found that natural gas &#8220;production and processing&#8221; is emitting more methane than estimated by the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/\">Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>. That has implications for global climate change, though the report found that methane leaks could potentially be fixed.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Rather than focus on greenhouse gasses, the investigation released today looks at toxic chemicals.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"166\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/135712965&amp;color=ff5500&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_artwork=true\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n&#8220;There&#8217;s just no question that the chemicals are being released. The real uncertainty is, how bad is it?How bad is it going to be for people five or ten or twenty yeas down the road?&#8221; Morris asks.<\/p>\n<p>But determining the exact nature of pollution in the region is difficult. That\u2019s in part because the state regulator, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ), hasn\u2019t installed enough equipment.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEven though the Eagle Ford Shale covers about 20,000 square miles, which is about twice the size of the state of Massachusetts &#8212; if you can picture that &#8212; there are only five permanent air monitors,\u201d says Morris.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fracking boom that has brought jobs and money to rural parts of South Texas has also brought potentially life-threatening air pollution.\u00a0That\u2019s according to a joint investigation out today from the Center for Public Integrity, the Weather Channel and Inside Climate News. The report found that toxic chemicals like benzene and hydrogen sulfide are being [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[64,15],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34503"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34516,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34503\/revisions\/34516"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}