Assessing Unconventional Oil and Gas Exposure in the Appalachian Basin: Comparison of Exposure Surrogates and Residential Drinking Water Measurements
Name
acs.est.1c05081.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.88 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
8c02d881eaa687a41f0746324993d348
Author(s)
Clark, Cassandra J
Xiong, Boya
Soriano, Mario A
Gutchess, Kristina
Siegel, Helen G
Ryan, Emma C
Johnson, Nicholaus P
Cassell, Kelsie
Elliott, Elise G
Li, Yunpo
Date Issued
2022
Journal
Environmental Science and Technology
Publisher
American Chemical Society (ACS)
Citation
Clark, Cassandra J, Xiong, Boya, Soriano, Mario A, Gutchess, Kristina, Siegel, Helen G et al. 2022. "Assessing Unconventional Oil and Gas Exposure in the Appalachian Basin: Comparison of Exposure Surrogates and Residential Drinking Water Measurements." Environmental Science and Technology, 56 (2).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Health studies report associations between metrics of residential proximity to unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development and adverse health endpoints. We investigated whether exposure through household groundwater is captured by existing metrics and a newly developed metric incorporating groundwater flow paths. We compared metrics with detection frequencies/concentrations of 64 organic and inorganic UOG-related chemicals/groups in residential groundwater from 255 homes (Pennsylvania n = 94 and Ohio n = 161). Twenty-seven chemicals were detected in ≥20% of water samples at concentrations generally below U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards. In Pennsylvania, two organic chemicals/groups had reduced odds of detection with increasing distance to the nearest well: 1,2-dichloroethene and benzene (Odds Ratio [OR]: 0.46, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.23-0.93) and m- and p-xylene (OR: 0.28, 95% CI: 0.10-0.80); results were consistent across metrics. In Ohio, the odds of detecting toluene increased with increasing distance to the nearest well (OR: 1.48, 95% CI: 1.12-1.95), also consistent across metrics. Correlations between inorganic chemicals and metrics were limited (all |ρ| ≤ 0.28). Limited associations between metrics and chemicals may indicate that UOG-related water contamination occurs rarely/episodically, more complex metrics may be needed to capture drinking water exposure, and/or spatial metrics in health studies may better reflect exposure to other stressors.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1021/ACS.EST.1C05081
