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Residential proximity to hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells and adverse birth outcomes in urban and rural communities in California (2006-2015).

ABSTRACT: Background:Prenatal exposure to hydraulic fracturing (HF), a chemically intensive oil and gas extraction method, may be associated with adverse birth outcomes, but no health studies have been conducted in California. Methods:We conducted a retrospective cohort study of 979,961 births to mothers in eight California counties with HF between 2006 and 2015. Exposed individuals had at least 1 well hydraulically fractured within 1 km of their residence during pregnancy; the reference population had no wells within 1 km, but at least one oil/gas well within 10 km. We examined associations between HF and low birth weight (LBW), preterm birth (PTB), small for gestational age birth (SGA), and term birth weight (tBW) using generalized estimating equations and assessing urban-rural effect modification in stratified models. Results:Fewer than 1% of mothers (N = 1,192) were exposed to HF during pregnancy. Among rural mothers, HF exposure was associated with increased odds of LBW (odds ratio [OR] = 1.74; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.10, 2.75), SGA (OR = 1.68; 95% CI = 1.42, 2.27) and PTB (OR = 1.17; 95% CI = 0.64, 2.12), and lower tBW (mean difference: -73 g; 95% CI = -131, -15). Among urban mothers, HF exposure was positively associated with SGA (OR = 1.23; 95% CI = 0.98, 1.55), inversely associated with LBW (OR = 0.83; 95% CI = 0.63, 1.07) and PTB (OR = 0.65; 95% CI = 0.48, 0.87), and not associated with tBW (mean difference: -2 g; 95% CI = -35, 31). Conclusion:HF proximity was associated with adverse birth outcomes, particularly among rural Californians.

SUBMITTER: Tran KV

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8663888 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:BackgroundOil and gas development emits known hematological carcinogens, such as benzene, and increasingly occurs in residential areas. We explored whether residential proximity to oil and gas development was associated with risk for hematologic cancers using a registry-based case-control study design.MethodsParticipants were 0-24 years old, living in rural Colorado, and diagnosed with cancer between 2001-2013. For each child in our study, we calculated inverse distance weighted (IDW) oil and gas well counts within a 16.1-kilometer radius of residence at cancer diagnosis for each year in a 10 year latency period to estimate density of oil and gas development. Logistic regression, adjusted for age, race, gender, income, and elevation was used to estimate associations across IDW well count tertiles for 87 acute lymphocytic leukemia (ALL) cases and 50 non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) cases, compared to 528 controls with non-hematologic cancers.FindingsOverall, ALL cases 0-24 years old were more likely to live in the highest IDW well count tertiles compared to controls, but findings differed substantially by age. For ages 5-24, ALL cases were 4.3 times as likely to live in the highest tertile, compared to controls (95% CI: 1.1 to 16), with a monotonic increase in risk across tertiles (trend p-value = 0.035). Further adjustment for year of diagnosis increased the association. No association was found between ALL for children aged 0-4 years or NHL and IDW well counts. While our study benefited from the ability to select cases and controls from the same population, use of cancer-controls, the limited number of ALL and NHL cases, and aggregation of ages into five year ranges, may have biased our associations toward the null. In addition, absence of information on O&G well activities, meteorology, and topography likely reduced temporal and spatial specificity in IDW well counts.ConclusionBecause oil and gas development has potential to expose a large population to known hematologic carcinogens, further study is clearly needed to substantiate both our positive and negative findings. Future studies should incorporate information on oil and gas development activities and production levels, as well as levels of specific pollutants of interest (e.g. benzene) near homes, schools, and day care centers; provide age-specific residential histories; compare cases to controls without cancer; and address other potential confounders, and environmental stressors.

Project description:Microbial activity in the produced water from hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells may potentially interfere with hydrocarbon production and cause damage to the well and surface infrastructure via corrosion, sulfide release, and fouling. In this study, we surveyed the microbial abundance and community structure of produced water sampled from 42 Marcellus Shale wells in southwestern Pennsylvania (well age ranged from 150 to 1,846 days) to better understand the microbial diversity of produced water. We sequenced the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene to assess taxonomy and utilized quantitative PCR (qPCR) to evaluate the microbial abundance across all 42 produced water samples. Bacteria of the order Halanaerobiales were found to be the most abundant organisms in the majority of the produced water samples, emphasizing their previously suggested role in hydraulic fracturing-related microbial activity. Statistical analyses identified correlations between well age and biocide formulation and the microbial community, in particular, the relative abundance of Halanaerobiales We further investigated the role of members of the order Halanaerobiales in produced water by reconstructing and annotating a Halanaerobium draft genome (named MDAL1), using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and metagenomic binning. The recovered draft genome was found to be closely related to the species H. congolense, an oil field isolate, and Halanaerobium sp. strain T82-1, also recovered from hydraulic fracturing produced water. Reconstruction of metabolic pathways revealed Halanaerobium sp. strain MDAL1 to have the potential for acid production, thiosulfate reduction, and biofilm formation, suggesting it to have the ability to contribute to corrosion, souring, and biofouling events in the hydraulic fracturing infrastructure.IMPORTANCE There are an estimated 15,000 unconventional gas wells in the Marcellus Shale region, each generating up to 8,000 liters of hypersaline produced water per day throughout its lifetime (K. Gregory, R. Vidic, and D. Dzombak, Elements 7:181-186, 2011, https://doi.org/10.2113/gselements.7.3.181; J. Arthur, B. Bohm, and M. Layne, Gulf Coast Assoc Geol Soc Trans 59:49-59, 2009; https://www.marcellusgas.org/index.php). Microbial activity in produced waters could lead to issues with corrosion, fouling, and souring, potentially interfering with hydraulic fracturing operations. Previous studies have found microorganisms contributing to corrosion, fouling, and souring to be abundant across produced water samples from hydraulically fractured wells; however, these findings were based on a limited number of samples and well sites. In this study, we investigated the microbial community structure in produced water samples from 42 unconventional Marcellus Shale wells, confirming the dominance of the genus Halanaerobium in produced water and its metabolic potential for acid and sulfide production and biofilm formation.

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Residential proximity to hydraulically fractured oil and gas wells and adverse birth outcomes in urban and rural communities in California (2006-2015).

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