Sep 15, 2016 4 min read

Clean Air Council attempted to clear the air about pollution Wednesday evening.

“It’s a Threat Map, not a Nicey Nicey Map,” Lois Bower-Bjornson said while introducing an online map that, according to the environmental nonprofit, shows the public threat posed by existing methane pollution anywhere in the United States, except Hawaii.

Bjornson, a Scenery Hill resident and member of the Philadelphia-based council, unveiled the color-coded map at Citizens Library in Washington. The program attracted an audience of 14, including Bjornson’s four children.

The map – oilandgasthreatmap.com – is only three months old and was developed by three other environmental nonprofits: Earthworks, Clean Air Task Force and FracTracker Alliance. An online user can check out individual states plus Washington, D.C.

Pennsylvania’s map shows the locations of more than 100,000 oil and gas facilities plus the populations, schools and hospitals within a half-mile radius of those facilities.

Red (high alert) and yellow (threat to the population) are bad colors on this map. Pennsylvania’s shows a lot of both in the western third, including most of Washington and Greene counties. Asthma attacks, according to the map, are most prevalent in the region in Allegheny County. They’re about half as common in Westmoreland; less so in Washington and Fayette; and a fraction in Greene.

The yellow pattern on the Pennsylvania map roughly follows that of Marcellus shale in the state. Although the oil and gas industry has been in a downturn for more than two years, several audience members expressed concern about effects that drilling may have on the environment. They also are aware that drilling is picking up.

“People have to understand this is dangerous,” said Jane Worthington of Robinson Township. She said her family moved there in March from Hickory, where she said a daughter was exposed to benzene through the air.

Some, however, claim Pennsylvania air isn’t an acute issue.

DEP Secretary Patrick McDonnell said Aug. 17 that “overall, our air quality continues to improve.” His department that day claimed methane emissions fell 12 percent from 2012 and 2014, and sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions – which aggravate asthma – were down nearly 20 percent.

Also, the Observer-Reporter reported June 19 that an independent study for the Fort Cherry School District, relying on data from air quality monitors, found that natural gas drilling “did not substantially affect local air concentrations of total and individual organic compounds” and “all individual (volatile organic compound) concentrations in the monitored area were well below health-protective levels.”

The Marcellus Shale Coalition, a trade group representing roughly 300 oil and gas producers and their supply chain partners, said in a statement: “Thanks to the safe development and expanded use of Pennsylvania’s abundant, clean-burning natural gas resources, our air quality continues to sharply improve – a fact that’s confirmed time and again by federal, state and independent scientific data. With natural gas, we’re demonstrating that our economy and our environment can improve at the same time, which is a shared industry and community commitment.”

Bjornson, who oversaw the 90-minute program Wednesday, finds it nettlesome that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection has a plan to reduce methane emissions from oil and natural gas production, but has yet to implement it.

“In January, the governor (Tom Wolf) said we have to regulate the industry,” she said. “It’s September and nothing has been done. When will the DEP set regulations? It’s essential that we keep putting the pressure on.”

To that end, Bjornson distributed bags and buckets to audience members. She urged them to collect air in the bags, each with a small vacuum, and place a number of them in a bucket.

Clean Air Council wants to distribute them to the DEP on Oct. 13. Bjornson said the group has scheduled a presentation for 11 a.m. in the main capitol rotunda in Harrisburg, and would like to charter a bus for the event.

“We can say, ‘This is the air we are breathing,'” said Bjornson, whose oldest child is bused daily to the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School in Beaver County, near the site for the Shell cracker plant that will be developed early next decade.

Her organization is determined to communicate its message.

“We have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing,” she said.