Texas Schools Buy Into Gas Drilling, Students Get Sick

In Argyle, Texas, the school district signed leases for gas drilling on 110 acres of school property. The upside? A school system earned over $680K in payments, allowing it to pay off its deficit and balance its budget. The down side? Kids at the school are getting sick, according to a recent article in the Denton Record Chronicle.

As covered on change.org's Environment blog, the Argyle Town Council approved zoning changes to allow drilling at two different drill pad sites, one half a mile from the school, the other a mere 1,500 feet from the Argyle Intermediate school.

Soon after drilling began, there were “complaints about students with nosebleeds, dizziness, disorientation and nausea … Some residents reported smelling rotten eggs, a smell associated with sulfides, while others reported odors similar to gas, pesticides and fingernail polish remover.”

One mother told the reporters that “she had to pull her daughter out of high school marching band practices because of dense fumes on the field. Her daughter was dizzy, jittery. Her head ached and she couldn’t concentrate.” The mother also said that her daughter experienced a recurrence of asthma. Many of the symptoms reported by the Argyle students accord with the health problems detailed by homeowners interviewed in the film Gasland. Recently featured on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Gasland covers the gas drilling process of hydraulic fracturing, called fracking, which was exempted from environmental oversight by former vice-president Dick Cheney in the Halliburton Loophole federal regulations.

As a result of this change in regulatory policy, which was enacted in the 2005 Energy Bill and signed by former President Bush, gas companies, who maintain that fracking is “safe,” are not required to disclose the over 500 toxic chemicals used in the process. These can directly pollute air and often contaminate water due to explosions, evaporation, human error, hazardous waste mis-management, spills and leaks.

Since information about the fracking chemicals is proprietary and secret, much research on their effects remains to be done. But there has been long-standing research on certain common chemicals used in fracking.

For example many studies reveal a clear association between occupational exposure to gas and oil industrial work and leukemia incidence.

In addition, following several fracking related explosions, Dr. Theo Colborn, PhD. was able to obtain samples of a substantial number of fracking chemicals found in the resulting chemical-laden spills. Through independent lab tests, she was able to correlate the chemicals contained in fracking spills both to chemicals found in water near drilling sites and to toxin levels found in people who experienced health problems following exposure to contaminated water.

“More than 75 percent of the chemicals on the list can affect the skin, eyes, and other sensory organs, the respiratory system, the gastrointestinal system and the liver,” Colborn’s research found.

Remember the Argyle student who was feeling headache-y and dizzy? Well, it turns out that “Over half the chemicals show effects in the brain and nervous system. These first four categories represent effects that would likely be expressed upon immediate exposure, such as eye and skin irritation, nausea and/or vomiting, asthma, coughing, sore throat, flu- like symptoms, tingling, dizziness, headaches, weakness, fainting, numbness in extremities and convulsions.”

Would merely inhaling the chemicals be harmful? Yes, because as Colborn notes, “In all probability, none of the chemicals in these categories would normally be ingested during natural gas operations, but immediate eye, nasal, dermal contact and inhalation could lead to rapid absorption and cause direct exposure to the brain and other vital organ systems.”

One challenge in assessing health risks, like the ones that the Argyle students are experiencing, is the companies' lack of cooperation in disclosing chemicals. Recently the Environmental Protection Agency asked nine major companies involved in fracking for information. All complied but one -- Halliburton. Now the EPA has subpoenaed Halliburton.

In Argyle, a local activist organization, the Argyle-Bartonville Communities Alliance, has organized in the last year to collect health data and raise awareness in the parent community. Sign this petition on behalf the Texas students telling the Argyle town council to investigate the health effects of drilling near their schools.

Photo credit: alamosbasement