Clearing the Air
How one resident near fracking got the EPA to pay attention to her air quality
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Researchers and people living near shale activity are finding new and beneficial ways to use citizen science.
Clearing the Air
We helped residents near a fracking site test their air quality. Here’s what we found.
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Over about two months, we took air quality measurements at five homes near a shale gas well pad 20 miles east of Pittsburgh.
Clearing the Air
What can you do when you live 500 feet from a shale gas well pad?
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You don’t have to be for or against gas drilling to have concerns about your air.
Clearing the Air
New study connects asthma complications to shale drilling in Pennsylvania
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"I think that there is a growing body of evidence that shows that unconventional natural gas development is associated with negative health impacts"
ENVIRONMENT
Environmental concerns cited again as Pittsburgh suburb rejects another shale gas permit
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ENVIRONMENT For the second time in a month a zoning board in Penn Township — a rural suburb about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh — has rejected a request for a small drilling company to construct a shale gas site.
Shale development in the area has been a hotly contested issue among residents, township officials and the drillers that want to set up shop. (Read PublicSource’s in-depth story about the community’s struggles.)
Part of the project: Clearing the air
ENVIRONMENT
Residents’ concerns prompted plans to expand DEP air quality monitoring near shale gas sites in Pennsylvania
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The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection announced today it will expand the state’s air quality monitoring network for fine particulate matter (PM 2.5) into more areas around compressors stations and near many shale gas wells.
Calling the move “unprecedented,” DEP Secretary John Quigley said during a press webinar that the state could soon have one of the largest air quality monitoring networks in the country.
“We heard the concerns of shale field residents and we are responding,” Quigley said.
ENVIRONMENT
A Pittsburgh suburb just denied a shale gas permit based on environmental concerns
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Citing environmental concerns, a zoning board has denied a permit request by a small drilling company to build the second shale gas well pad in Penn Township, a rural-residential suburb about 20 miles east of Pittsburgh.
“The applicant has failed to adequately demonstrate that the drill site operations will not violate the environmental rights of the citizens…” the decision for the Beattie Central Pad-37 states.
(Photo by Connor Mulvaney/PublicSource)
Clearing the Air
Inside the fight to frack Penn Township
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This is not the first community to experience shale drilling, and it won’t be the last. But its exposure to the tumult of first-time drilling and the controversies it brings provides a window into what it’s like for people on all sides of the debate.
ENVIRONMENT
Are cheap sensors and concerned citizens leading to a shift in air monitoring?
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It wouldn’t have happened five or 10 years ago.
That’s what one expert said about the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) helping regular citizens — or “citizen scientists” — collect their own air quality data.
