{"id":142866,"date":"2026-03-19T16:10:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/142866\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:10:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T16:10:09","slug":"allegheny-county-health-board-considers-fracking-impacts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/142866\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00a0Allegheny County health board considers fracking impacts"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are 225 active wells located on 30 well pads in Allegheny County, according to data from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection analysed by the non-profit Fractracker Alliance.<\/p>\n

The Allegheny County Board of Health formed a committee<\/a> on fracking last year to investigate the health impact on residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that there are toxic compounds released as part of unconventional natural gas and oil extraction [fracking],\u201d committee member Dr. Graham Snyder told the full board on Wednesday. \u201cWe know those compounds can be associated biologically with health effects.\u201d<\/p>\n

The committee intends to make recommendations on how the county can better protect residents.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need to do\u2026is [understand] what changes can we recommend in the county, statutorily,\u201d Snyder said, \u201cthat would give us the best bang for the buck, figuratively speaking, in improving health outcomes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Committee chair Laura Dagley, a registered nurse and writer for Physicians for Social Responsibility, told the board that they\u2019ve been looking at known carcinogens from fracking, like benzene, as well as volatile organic compounds and fine particulate matter, and using an Environmental Protection Agency tool<\/a> to estimate the air quality and health benefits.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd there was analysis done looking at what would happen if you added one well pad and then took away one well pad to an area in terms of outcomes,\u201d Dagley said. \u201c[The analysis is] looking at emergency room visits for respiratory issues, infant mortality, asthma onset, etcetera.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Allegheny Front requested the analysis and other materials related to the committee\u2019s work, but it has not yet been made available.<\/p>\n

A new report compiles years of data about the health risks associated with fracking<\/a><\/p>\n

At the meeting, board member Dr. Margaret Larkins-Pettigrew, professor and academic chair in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Drexel University, asked the committee to also look at the health care costs related to fracking in the county.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat does it cost for an infant to be hospitalized because they\u2019ve experienced this toxin? How much does it cost to actually take care of that infant?\u201d she asked. \u201cWhat is the cost of the number of deaths that may occur to a head of a household, now sends the entire family into poverty?\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t <\/p>\n

\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\"A\t\t\t<\/a>
\n\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t <\/p>\n

Larkins-Pettigrew said these questions are at the core of the recommendations the health board will make for policy change.<\/p>\n

New Investigation Finds Fracking Chemicals in the Bodies of People in Southwestern Pa.<\/a><\/p>\n

The environmental group Food and Water Watch said in an email that the county could \u201cclose the air pollution control loophole which currently exempts gas companies from obtaining standard air quality permits for construction and operation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nagley told The Allegheny Front that the committee hopes to present its recommendations at an upcoming board meeting. If the health board votes to approve them, the next step would be the Allegheny County Council.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are 225 active wells located on 30 well pads in Allegheny County, according to data from the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":142867,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[5051,13740,20374,73,75,74],"class_list":["post-142866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-air-pollution","tag-fracking","tag-natural-gas","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=142866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/142866\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/142867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=142866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=142866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=142866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}