Protecting Communities from Pollution with Alison Steele

While pollution mitigation and control is vital to the environment, scientists are finding more and more problems for the humans that live near polluting corporate sites. Unfortunately in the name of jobs and profit, companies have produced pollution while ignoring or hiding the human health from their work, often producing what is known as "sacrifice zones" -- areas where the pollution is dangerous for people who often cannot leave. The Environmental Health Project has taken on the difficult job of using health science discern the short and long term effects of gas fracking and plastic production on local populations. On this week's podcast we welcome Alison Steele, who tells us the good, the bad and the ugly of trying to help communities protect their health from the perils of corporate practices that could affect these communities for generations.

Alison L. Steele, MBA, is the Executive Director of The Environmental Health Project (EHP), a nonprofit public health organization that assists and supports residents of Southwestern Pennsylvania and beyond who believe their health has been, or could be, impacted by shale gas development and other polluting industries in the area.. Alison earned her undergraduate degree in physics from Drew University in Madison, NJ and her MBA in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, PA. As part of her graduate work, Alison studied sustainability tools and practices used by leading companies in Europe, performed consulting services for large Pittsburgh-area companies, and published research on organizational behavior techniques used to aid adoption of sustainability initiatives. Prior to starting at EHP, she led policy and education efforts at Conservation Consultants, Inc. and developed the company's flagship grassroots community engagement program, which focused on advancing home health and energy efficiency in low-income Pittsburgh neighborhoods. She joined EHP at the beginning of 2020, and since then, she and her team have been taking advantage of our increasingly virtual world to extend their reach as they work to defend public health in the face of shale gas development.

Some links for further reading:

• Environmental Health Project (EHP) policy white paper mentioned in the episode
• EHP fact sheet page
• Eyes on Shell, a community awareness web site focusing on the Beaver County cracker plant described in the episode

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Episode Transcript

Greg Williams (00:10):
Thanks for joining us for another episode
of climate money watchdog wherewe investigate and report on how
federal dollars are being spenton mitigating climate change and
protecting the environment. Weare a private, nonpartisan
nonprofit organization that doesnot accept advertisers or
sponsors. So we can only do thiswork with your support. Please

(00:31):
visit visit us at claim moneywatchdog.org To learn more about
us and consider making adonation. My name is Greg
Williams and I learned toinvestigate and report on waste,
fraud and abuse in federalspending while working at the
project on government oversight,or Pogo 30 years ago, I learned
to do independent research aswell as to work on conflict work

(00:52):
with confidential informants, orwhistleblowers as they're
sometimes called to uncoverthings like overpriced spare
parts, like the infamous $435hammers, and weapon systems that
didn't work as advertised. I wastaught by my co hosts Dena
razor, who founded Pogo in 1981,and founded climate money
watchdog with me last year, Danahas spent 40 years investigating

(01:16):
and sometimes recoveringmillions of dollars wasted by
the Defense Department and otherbranches of the government at
Pogo, as an independentjournalist, as an author, and as
a professional investigator.
Dana, do you want to say acouple of things about yourself
and why we're so excited to haveAllison with us today?

Dina Rasor (01:37):
Yes. I'm Dina Rasor.
And I have and I have been inthis for I think it's down 43
years. And one of things I'mproud of is using the
whistleblower qui tam FalseClaims Act law. My at the time
business partner and I helped toreturn over $200 million to the
federal government. And throughthat law, which I always say is

(01:57):
probably the two days of thePentagon toilet paper budget,
that's okay. It's the best partabout it as it tries to keep
other people worried about thefact that they may have a
whistleblower in their myths,and maybe not do such bad stuff.
And yeah, I get Greg, Greg, hisfirst job out of college, and we

(02:19):
have known each other for years,and we decided to do this
together. We have both I'veinvestigated other areas like
Medicare fraud, oh, gosh, Ican't, I can't, besides
department fence, Medicarefraud, fraud with the phone
contracts with the federalgovernment, lots of different

(02:40):
things. So I've gone in othersubjects. But once you do the
Pentagon, everything seemseasier because then the Pentagon
has been, you know, pretty muchdefense contractors have been
defrauding since theRevolutionary War. So it is much
more frustrating. Yes. And wewanted to talk to Allison today

(03:01):
because I, I, personally, amvery concerned about pollution.
You know, people say, Oh,climate, climate, climate, but
one of the things we want tomake sure that doesn't happen.
And that is in the course ofdoing money going and climate,
we also need to have things gointo pollution mitigation,

(03:23):
because that keeps going on,even though you know, you can
fix. You can take every everymolecule of co2 out of the out
of the atmosphere, and you stillhave all these pollution, things
that are sitting around. And I'mgoing to take a little bit of
leeway here. I was looking atthree years ago, right before

(03:45):
COVID hit. I was looking at coalash, coal ash, mountains,
literally in near a family farm,our family farm in Kentucky that
were right on the Ohio Riverwatershed and leaked directly
into it. And I decided to goundercover, which is my favorite
thing to do. And I got a mom vanand I drove all over the place.

(04:07):
I know the I know, the Kentuckysouthern wave. And so everybody
loves just mom driving around.
But what I did was I actuallygot in the gates and drove
around and I noticed that theroads were white, and I thought
gee, that's interesting, andthey were plowing it and the

(04:29):
trucks going by and here's thebig coal ash mountain until it
dawned on me later, I wasstanding on the coal ash near of
nearest well that had massiveamounts of benzene in it. So
when the crux went by, you know,white flew everywhere, and I
didn't think anything of it mademe cough but on the way home

(04:51):
thought my god, I'm gettingstrep throat. And I was going to
see my parents. So I went to, Iwent to urgent care. And the
woman looked at my throat andsaid, What have you been? I
thought, Well, I think a strepthroat because what have you
been doing the back of yourcoat, your throat is roached

(05:12):
it's peeling. It's a chemicalpeel. And I said, Well, today I
was on top of coal ash mountainwith trucks going by. And it
didn't dawn on me that this thatthis stuff airborne is so
dangerous. And so I she gave memedicine, but two or three days,
and the entire back of my throatpeeled off. So I've probably

(05:35):
taken a few years off my life.
For people to know when you'relooking at doing pollution,
don't don't expose yourself likeI did. But I just when she was
talking about the fracking andthe shale and all the other
things that you guys have beenworking on. I thought about
that. And that stuff stillsitting there. This not man

(05:56):
cleaned up, same as the samewith the coal ash. It's not been
cleaned up. It's just sittingthere. And I don't want the coal
I want to work in the climatearea, but I do not want to let
the polluters off the hook. Sothat's why one of the reasons
that when I see something likeAlison when I see some group

(06:18):
looking and working with localpeople on their health, I think
back to my broached throat.
That's, that's my few words ofwhy I want to do that. Okay,
great. You want to go ahead.

Greg Williams (06:34):
So our guest tonight is Allison Steele, the
executive director of theEnvironmental Health Project, a
nonprofit public healthorganization that assists and
supports residents ofsouthwestern Pennsylvania and
beyond, who believe their healthhas been or could be impacted by
shale gas development, and otherpolluting industries in the
area. Allison earned herundergraduate degree in physics

(07:00):
from Durham University inMadison, New Jersey and her MBA
in sustainable businesspractices from Duquesne
University in Pittsburgh. Aspart of graduate work, Allison
studied sustainability tools andpractices used by leading
companies in Europe performedconsulting services for large
Pittsburgh area companies, andpublished research and

(07:20):
Organizational Behaviortechniques used to aid adoption
of sustainability initiatives.
Prior to starting sdhb, she ledpolicy and education efforts at
conservation consultantsIncorporated, and develop the
company's flagship grassrootscommunity engagement program,
which focused on advancing homehealth and energy efficiency in
low income Pittsburghneighborhoods. She joined DHP at

(07:42):
the beginning of 2020. And sincethen, she and her team have been
taking advantage of ourincreasingly virtual world to
extend their reach as they workto defend public health in the
face of shale gas development.
Welcome, Alison.

Alison Steele (08:00):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm thrilled to
be on the show and talk aboutthis really important subject
and the work that HP has beendoing for the past decade.
Before we get into that, though,I would just like to say a shout
out to other Kentucky heritageon on the podcast, my dad is

(08:24):
from Kentucky and actually livedin Lake Dreamland for a while
just south of the DuPont worksand had lots of very similar
stories to what Dana justshared. So I'm really happy to
be here to talk about the workthat PHP is doing what we've
seen on the front lines of shalegas development. You know, I I

(08:50):
sometimes joke that my job atbhp is really just going around
and bragging about the work thateverybody else does on the team.
But in reality, havingconversations like this are
really important to our mission,to make sure that people are
aware of what's going on and topush for adequate health

(09:10):
protections and, and making surethat no one is is subject to
adverse health impacts from anystage of the shale gas
lifecycle. So thank you for theopportunity to chat and I'm
looking forward to gettingstarted.

Greg Williams (09:29):
You maybe want to start by explaining what shale
gas is. And other terms thatmaybe the same are easily
confused with shale gas.

Alison Steele (09:38):
Yes, absolutely.
I think probably the term thatis most commonly used is natural
gas. There are some some groupsthat advocate against the use of
that term because it has a verypositive spin on it using the
word natural. It is is alsodescribed as fossil gas because

(10:00):
it is a fossil fuel. And thereare a lot of gas deposits it
particularly in shaleformations, like where we are
located sitting on top of theMarcellus and Utica Shale plays.
And so that shale gas is theterm that we use. But it can go
by a number of other names,including just talking about

(10:23):
methane. There are a lot oforganizations that talk about
the use of the burning ofmethane, methane pollution. Of
course, methane is not the onlything coming out of the ground
with that gas. But those arethose are some of the terms that
are used, sometimesinterchangeably in discussions
on this subject.

Dina Rasor (10:47):
Okay, well, I'll start with the first question.
And you can, you know, give ussome background. So it's been 10
years since the EnvironmentalHealth Project was started. And
I understand that you joined in2020. Yes. Okay. And what
triggered you to work for thisorganization and give us some

(11:08):
background on your original workon shale gas, gas development,
your accomplishments to date andother areas that you've expanded
to beyond shell grass? Yeah,sure. So switchgrass?

Alison Steele (11:22):
Sure, there's there's a lot to cover in our 10
years of work. Each piece goalfrom the start was to ensure
that public health was centralto decisions made around the
extraction and use of shale gas.
And we were founded as aresponse to growing concerns in

(11:45):
the region about the healthimpacts of shale gas
development, particularlyfracking. And each piece stepped
in to fill what was essentiallya very large information gap.
There was little known about theprocess, the potential health
impacts, how people might helpphysically respond to the

(12:08):
process and had littleinformation about what they
could do to protect themselvesfrom potential exposures that
could result in health harms. Sowe started with a with a
geographic focus on SouthwestPennsylvania in the beginning,
because that was really theepicenter of the Marcellus boom.
But we've expanded our worksince then to surrounding

(12:32):
states. And that work includesthree main areas. The first is
data collection and analysis,where we actually look at
monitor readings, around sitesof concern in communities and
analyze and get a betterunderstanding of the type of
exposures that people in thatcommunity are experiencing. The

(12:54):
second is health and wellnesseducation, where we, since the
beginning have beenconsolidating information that's
known on the subject largelyfrom academic research being
done on the subject, but alsoinformation that we've gathered
anecdotally from our own our owninteractions with communities,

(13:18):
consolidating that informationand packaging it in easy to
understand, easy to followresources that can be used by a
variety of audiences. And thenthat third area is policy and
advocacy initiatives. So in ourwork, over the years, it really

(13:39):
started out when we were tryingto just get a sense of what was
happening. The the types ofquestions that we got from
impacted residents started offwith more questions that were
more along the lines of what'shappening to me. And over the
years, as more information hasbecome available on the subject

(14:03):
more people have have gotten upto speed on the process and how
it impacts human health. Thequestions have evolved to
something more along the linesof what can I do about it. And
so our efforts have evolved aswell to incorporate this third
area of policy and advocacyinitiatives so that we can help

(14:24):
arm residents and educatepolicymakers about these health
issues. And in addition to ourgeographic expansion, and our
subject matter or approach,we've also expanded in subject

(14:44):
matter as more and moreinformation becomes available
about the different stages ofshale gas development. And so
when I say different stages ofthe of the the entire supply
chain chain, a lot of focus goesto the extraction piece, the
drilling and fracking componentthat's that's where the vast

(15:06):
majority of the conversationshave been centered over the
years. But there are alsoconcerns around the
transportation of that gasthrough pipelines and compressor
stations. Also thetransportation of equipment
associated with putting thatinfrastructure in place, there's

(15:28):
a lot of diesel truck traffic,but also end uses of that gas,
whether you're using it tocreate electricity, or, as I'm
sure we're going to talk about,create plastics, or create
hydrogen as an alternative fuelsource, which is an entirely

(15:50):
different can of worms. Andthen, of course, the the waste
disposal piece of that of thatsupply chain where you're
talking about gettingtransporting hazardous waste,
and then getting rid of iteither in a landfill or
injecting it back into theground. So that's how our work
has evolved over the years. And,as you mentioned, this is we're

(16:17):
celebrating our 10 yearanniversary this year. And we're
really proud of several of ouraccomplishments over the years,
of course, it would be better ifwe were so successful that we
put ourselves out of a job anddidn't need to be doing this
work at all. But we're very gladthat we've been able to expand

(16:41):
our reach and our services, andwork to help as many people as
possible. A couple of thingsthat I would like to point out,
just over the years, the therewas a grand jury investigation
that took place. And the reportcame out in 2020. And they

(17:03):
actually identified EHP as beingan organization that quickly
stepped in to gather informationand provide guidance to
frontline communities whengovernment agencies such as the
Department of Health did notwe've worked nationally, with
with various groups concernedabout their air quality, in a in

(17:28):
a research capacity and aconsulting capacity in a data
analysis capacity with withgroups from New Jersey to New
Mexico. But we've also gottenattention from the international
community. We've worked withdelegation from the European

(17:49):
Union Parliament, and also beencontacted by individuals from
Australia, South Africa, India,France, who who wanted to learn
more about the issue, figure outwhat we knew, figure out what
could be done about it. Andright after I started with the

(18:13):
organization, we were involvedin a joint webinar with
residents of Ireland andNorthern Ireland who were
working on a fracking ban andwanted to hear more about our
experiences here. So we'vemanaged to do a lot over over
the last decade. And to markthat milestone in our work. We

(18:37):
released a white paper aretrospective white paper
earlier this year that details alot of the political landscape
within Pennsylvania and again,we don't just work in
Pennsylvania, our work hasexpanded to largely to the
surrounding states as well. Butsince our roots are in

(19:01):
Pennsylvania, we assembled arather extensive research paper
on Pennsylvania policy and howdifferent governmental bodies
over the years created a verybusiness friendly environment
for gas extraction companies andset really set the stage for the

(19:21):
shale boom. And I'm sure we cango into much more detail about
that. But that is that is thelast 10 years of EHP in a
nutshell.

Greg Williams (19:40):
A couple of things do you want to just
quickly remind our listenerswhat the distinction is between
fracking for gas and drillingfor gas.

Alison Steele (19:48):
There are two different stages in the in the
unconventional gas extractionprocess. The first is you drill
The hole to actually create thebore. And then after the hole
itself is drilled, there is thefracking process. It's actually

(20:11):
called completion the theindustry doesn't use the term
fracking anymore. The completionprocess, fracking process
injects a mixture of water, finesand and chemicals into the bore
at high pressure to fracture theshale formation and allow the

(20:33):
methane gas, the fossil gas, theshale gas to escape.

Greg Williams (20:39):
So is there any significant amount of gas
extraction now done in theUnited States or elsewhere in
the old conventional way? Or isit all done through what we call
hydraulic fracturing orfracking?

Alison Steele (20:54):
My understanding is the vast vast majority of gas
extraction is done through theunconventional way, certainly in
in the Marcellus that that ishow it is done now.

Greg Williams (21:08):
Okay, and then do you want to just briefly comment
on the significance of thisissue for Pennsylvania, and how
it had a significant effect onthe platform's of recent
congressional candidates, muchas it is, in other states, there
are issues that are so importantto that state that people who

(21:29):
otherwise take out a moreprogressive position, you know,
you may think of Bernie Sandersand his support for stopping
further gun control legislation.
It's a big enough issue inPennsylvania that you have
otherwise environmentallyprogressive candidates who feel

(21:50):
the pressure to accommodate theindustry.

Alison Steele (21:56):
Absolutely. And fracking has continued to be a
hot button issue, in politics,in elections in positions of
members of both of the majorparties. And that's something
that we've seen over the yearsis, when this subject enters the

(22:18):
political arena, very often,there is a false dichotomy
that's created between jobs andpotential economic benefits, and
environmental health, publichealth, climate health, as
though they're separate issuesand not not connected to each

(22:44):
other. And so that's where wesee a big dividing line on this
issue in, in many conversationsin many arguments over the
years, even when it comes downto not just elections, but the
creation of policy. And one ofthe things that we really like

(23:06):
to stress is the idea that ifyou're going to have an economic
argument, by all means, let'shave an economic argument, but
make sure that you're includingthe economic factors of the
health impacts of living nearthis type of industrial

(23:28):
activity, we're talking aboutdays of missed work, days of
miss school, hospital visits, ERvisits, hospitalizations, health
treatments, ongoing healthtreatments, some of which
involves cancer treatment, whichcan be incredibly expensive. So

(23:50):
there's, when when you try topit economics versus health,
that it's, as I said, it's afalse dichotomy, because the two
are connected. So to answer yourquestion, it is a topic that
frequently comes up particularlyduring election years. But it is

(24:17):
it is typically not addressed ina holistic or informed manner.

Dina Rasor (24:25):
So I wanted to, to kind of point out to the
listeners I did I dabbled infracking in California offshore
fracking and next to anearthquake earthquake fault,
which is very exciting, excitingthing

Greg Williams (24:41):
to investigate what rock right you are not out
there fracking yourself?

Dina Rasor (24:45):
No, no, I was investigating it because I
wanted to unplug the the SantaBarbara wells that could no more
oil that had that horrible spillin 1970. And they wanted to
frack those wells and get thelast part out. and they were in
a marine reserve between twoearthquake faults. So we

(25:06):
started, since we know fracking,you know, can cause earthquakes
in Oklahoma if you're doing itnext to some of these big
faults. So but when I wanted towhat I was really surprised at
when I got into it is, and thisis this is where people say,
well, health, what is it, youknow, you go down there, you,
you frack the rocks, and youpull up and up, methane goes in,

(25:27):
causes climate problems. Butwhat I was always amazed at is
in certain states, and I thinkthis is true for Pennsylvania,
when they do this, they put thischemical, they have a chemical
cocktail that they put in, andthey go down and helps it, work
up the rocks and helps it cleanit out, you know, the stuff and

(25:49):
they got it. And I think thiswas something that Dick Cheney
put in is that other statesgrabbed on to it is the they
companies convinced the publicthese this slew that they have
that they've shut shot into theground and brought back up was
proprietary. So you can't knowabout the benzene and all the

(26:10):
other healthy stuff that's in itbeing sarcastic. But what got me
is they took when it comes up,they take that slew that they
used. And in a lot of cases, Iknow this was true in
California. And I think it'sgoing on in Pennsylvania, too.
And we'll talk about it, which Ithink is the real health problem

(26:31):
is they drill their own, youknow, disposal drill, and they
put the pollution laden slewdown under the ground into the
rocks, Oh, it'll never come up,we'll never see it again. Well,
you just frack the rocks. Soit's good. It's gonna go through
the years, you know, water findsits way. But I was sort of

(26:55):
shocked on that, because peopledon't know, even know. And I saw
this in some of your literature,what is being put into the
ground. So you have farmers thatare saying, oh, I want to frack
having my I'm not making much onmy farm, I'll have it frack and
everything else. And thenneighbors who decide not to, but
then it gets into the watertable gets into the wells, kind

(27:18):
of like coal ash, and, and allthat kind of stuff. And there
you have people who don't reallyunderstand. And they can't go to
their doctors to be tested forwhatever's in the slew because
it's proprietary, you know, it'snot healthy. So when you talk
about that the problem of youknow, some farmers needing you

(27:42):
seeing this as an incomegathering thing. But the side,
part of that is that it can ruinan aquifer, or it can ruin
wells, and especially in ruralareas, and it could get into the
water table, or it can go intorivers, and they pull the water
out of the rivers. And it's,they don't I know, in Kentucky,

(28:03):
they don't test for heavymetals. They don't test it for
me, they said all that it'sfine. It's fine. We just dumped
a bunch of coal ash stuff, andthat's okay, it flooded and got
into the Ohio River. That'sokay. But they're pulling water
for our farm down the river. Sowe're like, okay, we're not
drinking that until it's tested,because they don't test for
heavy metals. So I have a longway of going around that I

(28:23):
wanted to say that to me, thatjumps out to me as here's one of
the entry points where peopleare not very well educated, or
cannot be educated on whatthey're being exposed to. So
even if they want to go to theirdoctor and check and say, Do I

(28:44):
have benzene? Do I have thisheavy metal, that heavy metal,
which by the way, stays in yourbody forever? Especially the
heavy metals. And this must be adifficult thing for you to do in
communities where some of thepeople are saying, but I'm
making money and other peoplesaying but yeah, I didn't do
this with my farm. But nowyou've polluted all our drinking

(29:06):
water. So I wanted to kind ofhave you talk about that.
Because I think that's isn'tthat a point where that where
some of the real health problemscome from?

Alison Steele (29:14):
Yes, and you're absolutely right, that public
disclosure of fracking chemicalsis not required in Pennsylvania.
So you've got people who don'tknow what they're being exposed
to. You've got doctors who don'thave necessary information on
how to treat their patients.
You've got researchers who wantto study human health impacts in

(29:38):
up and they don't know what theyshould be looking at. You've
also got policymakers who, youknow, you can't make informed
decisions about regulations. Ifyou don't know what you are or
aren't regulating. And you arecorrect. It is Um, it was the

(29:58):
Energy Policy Act of 2005. Thatcreated a lot of regulatory
preferences for the oil and gasindustry, including a lot of
exemptions for shale gas fromfederal regulations, including
the Clean Water Act, Clean AirAct and a couple others. So that

(30:19):
is something that we run into.
And we see, we see a lot offrustration around that, where
there's still not a lot oftransparency about the process,
or the chemicals. And, and, youknow, to your to your other

(30:41):
point, one of the things that wehave to keep in mind as we do
our work is that, you know, any,every community is different.
And even within a community, agiven group of people is not a
monolith, you're always going tohave a range of perspectives
within a given community aboutpriorities and concerns and what

(31:05):
the impacts are positive andnegative. And what potential
solutions there are. So fromthat standpoint, really the best
way to approach identifyingproblems and creating solutions
is to have as much transparencyand as much information as

(31:27):
possible, and we don't have thatright now.

Dina Rasor (31:31):
Yeah, I just wanted to also say when you're you're
also studying cancer quarters,you know, which, you know, and
you didn't, you know, whenCalifornia here, we had a
freeway earthquake brought itdown, they took it away from the
they had built it over aminority community, and there
was a cancer column there fromthe air pollution that came

(31:54):
through. But, and so of course,you know, the communities Sue,
and they go to talk about thecancer, and then they they know
exactly what it's in the exhaustthat's causing it. But in this
situation, how do you when youhave cancer zones and stuff? How
do you if you don't even knowwhat the chemicals are? How do

(32:14):
you then make a scientificdecision? When you're doing your
thing that you, you know, weare, say you want to sue or say,
individuals want to sue? Andyou're I know, I know that
enough about the law, knowingthat if you don't know what is
in it, how can you show that itcaused the cancer?

Greg Williams (32:36):
I'll just quickly observe that, you know, for this
is not a small amount ofmaterial. I remember once
reading that the amount of waterand other chemicals pumped into
the ground, on an annual basiswas similar to the combined
weight of every ship in theUnited States Navy. It's

Dina Rasor (32:56):
it's, yeah, and it's in there forever. I mean, how do
you ever get it you once it goesinto an aquifer or a water
source? How do you, you know,how do you get out? So I'm just
wondering, how can you do yourcancer studies? When you have
all these, you know, people thatdo that, that come in? And I'm
sure the first thing they saywas, well, what are we working

(33:17):
with here? It's like, Oh, myGod. Oh, no. And by the way, I
think it's, I think California,they do have to say what's in
it, it's scary. It's a scarything. So go ahead. And I'm
convinced I'm confused on thisis how you can do the serious
scientific health studieswithout knowing what's in it?

Alison Steele (33:36):
Well, there are a couple of different types of
studies that can be done. Andcertainly for something in the
lab, where you're looking atreactions of animal cells or
human cells to certain types ofchemicals, you need to know what
chemicals you're putting onthose cells. But the other thing
that is important to keep inmind about that is for regulated

(34:02):
chemicals, using benzene as anexample, we know how that
substance in isolation impactshuman cells and human health and
can extrapolate from thatinformation. But we don't know
how some of these chemicals incombination, impact the human

(34:24):
body. And so that's part of theproblem in trying to understand
the impact of living near a sitewhere you might be exposed to
this chemical mix. And we don'tknow what the chemical mix is,
even if we do know some of theindividual components of that
mix. Or can can give it a bestguess based on other states that

(34:46):
do require public disclosure.
The other avenue to take andthis is this is more akin to
public health research is whatepidemiological studies, and so
EPI studies are the goldstandard of public health
research. But they deal withbroad trends in the population,

(35:10):
you're not going to take onegroup and expose them to benzene
and you're not going to takeanother group and not expose
them to benzene and see whathappens, you can't do that. But
what you do with a public withan EPI study is you look at
certain factors within thepopulation and, and identify

(35:31):
trends. So if you're looking forinstance of cancer in proximity
to a petrochemical facility,that's that's what you would
study, if you're looking forincidents of adverse birth
outcomes in proximity to well,pads, that's what you're looking

(35:52):
at. And so what you can do withthose studies is identify or not
identify trends in what you'relooking for. And with the amount
of research that has been doneon this subject, we've got 70
Plus peer reviewed healthstudies that we've tracked, just

(36:19):
as part of our own educationefforts that examine adverse
health outcomes in proximity toshale gas development, and that
includes cardiac and respiratoryissues, neurological issues,
adverse birth outcomes, varioustypes of cancers. And so when

(36:43):
you see this plan, preponderanceof evidence points all pointing
toward the same conclusion. Youcan't deny the possibility of a
connection. And you certainlyyou certainly can't justify
moving forward on a certain pathwithout trying to better

(37:08):
understand that connection, andtrying to put protections in
place for people who might beadversely affected by that
activity. Okay,

Dina Rasor (37:23):
you been talking, but we've got we've been talking
about how monitoring can be indifficult stuff. But how do you
then go and deal with localresidents and health health
problems that can becontributed, attributed to shale
oil? And what's the next step instopping that? And let me throw

(37:44):
this little impossibility inknowing that knowing the
politics of Pennsylvania becauseyou know, anything that makes
money, it makes jobs, it's hardto get people to worry about,
you know, the, the tree huggers,or you're worried about
polluting and pollution and allthat. And that is? What would it

(38:07):
be possible to try to get amovement in the state of
Pennsylvania where they do goodoverturning the proprietary
protection that these companieshave in putting the pollution
in? Is there any local? I mean,I look to local people ask you

(38:28):
that it's like, what, why can'tI find out what's in it? And all
that kind of stuff? And how doyou deal with that? When you go
up to people and say, well, wedon't know. But we think through
our studies that it is causingcancer? Well, why won't you
know, I know, it's hard, becausein a court of law, that's very
hard on what caused your cancer?
And how do you go to the localpeople to try to get them put

(38:50):
pressure on so that, you know, Ithink you should have a right to
know what you're being exposedto. It's just it's just
gobsmacking to me that that iswhat's knowing I know exactly.
What's in the coal ash. They Iknow exactly what those things
that they have to report allthat. And so I know exactly what
the what the things are, thatare bad, and it can cause

(39:11):
trouble. But and and thing, butis there any chance that that
rule could be changed, broken,you know, maybe even get a court
to say it's not? It's notcorrect that they have to do
this? Or is this somethingthat's sort of a holy grail in
Pennsylvania for fracking, a lotof fracking has been going on

(39:31):
for years.

Greg Williams (39:34):
Yeah, and maybe you can explain this in the
context of how at least from myperspective, pollution like this
is more typically handled. Imean, if you have something like
a dump or any other sort offacility that's going to have
effluent, you know, pollution ofsome kind flowing out of it. You
have to identify not that younot just that you're going to be

(40:00):
Having this stuff flowing out,you need to identify
specifically all of the placeswhere it's going to be coming
out, you need to identifyeverything that's in what's
coming out the amount, and thenyou're given a license that puts
limits on each one of thoseeffluent points and each of the
hazardous materials that's goingto be in that effluent. I mean,

(40:22):
it's the mirror opposite of, youknow, pumping more water that
you can imagine with God knowswhat in it wherever you want to
pump it.

Alison Steele (40:34):
I think one of the biggest issues that we run
into when when we haveconversations with people who
are living in frontlinecommunities and impact and being
impacted, we hear a lot offrustration that people aren't,

(40:55):
aren't paying more attention,that there aren't sufficient
protections that the protectionsthat are supposed to be in place
aren't working. One of thethings one of the trends that I
believe we identified and in thewhite paper that we released, is

(41:17):
this idea that there is amisconception about regulations,
and how they're formed and thepurpose that they serve. And it
is a talking point for theindustry that they are highly
regulated. But we know that partof this misconception about

(41:42):
regulations involves the beliefthat the regulations are set at
health protective levels, whichis not the case to start with.
And then the second piece ofthat is that the regulations are
being enforced strictly, whichthey are not. And so when you

(42:05):
have a common narrative, thatpoints to the idea that there
are protections in place,therefore everybody is safe,
then what happens is the burdenof proof of health impacts falls
to the people who are beingimpacted. And that is, not to

(42:29):
speak for anybody in a communitythis is this is, you know, what
we have heard from residents itis, it can be incredibly
disheartening to, to go throughthat process, to take the time
to learn about the industry andwhat they're using and what's

(42:50):
happening to you and feelinglike you have no recourse. So
some of the things that we do,certainly from from a public
health standpoint, the firststep is stopping the chain of
exposure to hazardoussubstances. So one of the things

(43:12):
that we wanted to do from thebeginning was provide guidance
to residents to help themunderstand how they can limit
their own exposures to harmfulpollution. We know that policy
change is is a long, slowprocess. And people can't wait

(43:32):
for another study for anotherbill for another election cycle.
They're, they're experiencingthese impacts now. So providing
guidance on things that they cando in their own home, that at
least help to mitigate some ofthe exposures is a first step

(43:53):
while also working towards thatlonger term goal of removing
their, their exposure to thesehazardous chemicals in the first
place. And so to do that, we dodirect outreach to policymakers

(44:14):
to help them understand thelimitations of existing policy
and the impacts that theirdecisions have on the health of
frontline community residents,but also giving those residents
and grassroots advocacy groupsthat work with them. tools to
help support their efforts,information, advocacy tools that

(44:38):
they can use in elevating theirown voices to protect
themselves. And so that's, it's,as I said, it's a long process
and involves, in some cases, areal groundswell of support and
knowledge on the subject. Toraise enough political will to

(45:03):
get the attention of electedofficials to make that kind of
change.

Dina Rasor (45:07):
So then there's our there are their lawyers, you
know, environmental lawyers,environmental groups, and people
like that, that actually feelthat they can bring lawsuits. I
know, having worked in lawlawyers, the first thing they're
gonna say is, if we don't knowwhat's in it, how are we going
to prove it? You know, but isthere are there people trying

(45:28):
to, you know, I'm sort ofthinking about the, the Erin
Brockovich route that they didin California, is that the
lawsuits were the only thingthat exposed these things. And
maybe a judge would say, youknow, I don't care what
Pennsylvania says, you know,especially if it's in federal
court, I don't care ifPennsylvania says, you know, you

(45:49):
have to disclose to in chambersto me, what's in that stuff, so
that we can, you know, informthe jury and all that kind of
stuff? Is there any lawsuitsgoing on? Based on this?

Alison Steele (46:03):
There, there is actually a lot of legal action
happening. And that's one of thethings we're really fortunate to
be able to partner with otherorganizations that, that can
that have the legal expertiseand can take steps to combat
state level regulations, evenlocal level decisions, appealing

(46:29):
decisions at multiple levels ofgovernment. And then, from a
from a partnership standpoint,you know, we don't have that
kind of legal expertise, butwe've got the health expertise,
so we can come in and bring thatawareness of health impacts to
the table and partner with agroup that is able to step in

(46:49):
and provide legal support to acommunity. And we've seen some
really exciting developments.
Even just in the last couplemonths, there was a fracking ban
in Allegheny County Parks, thatthat was successful, just this
past summer. So there, there iscertainly more attention on the

(47:13):
subject, and more action andmore people getting involved, I
think then, than there have beenin the past couple years.

Dina Rasor (47:27):
Okay, good. Well, I also want to bring up this new
thing that's going on and you'regetting involved with is the
local shell cracker plant, whichno, is they're not making
saltines I'll let you explainthis. Because this is, this is a
pollution problem of plastic.
And, you know, everybody startsto understand the micro pellets
that that are breaking up, andin everything, and are in our

(47:52):
country. In fact, I saw this andI couldn't believe it. I thought
it was good and believe it butthey said Americans are eating
the equivalent of one creditcard a week in plastic through
all these things, and nowthey're about ready to open up a
plant in your in your area. And,and the doesn't sound like the

(48:13):
health. It doesn't sound likethe decision making process had
a whole heck of a lot to do withthe local people's health. Which
I when I was working with a NewMexico group, I had never heard
this before. And they said,Well, we're part of what you
call a sacrifice zone. And theysee that is oh, they're rural,

(48:33):
or the inner city, they don'thave a lot of power. So these
people are the sacrifice zones.
And it just startled me how it'ssort of openly spoken about that
way. And this sounds like it'sgoing to make a sacrifice them
so good. Maybe you can explainwhat you're what it's about and

(48:53):
what's going on.

Alison Steele (48:54):
Yes, the cracker actually creates ethylene out of
ethane the what the process atthe facility they they take
ethane which is part of the gasmix in our regional shale play.
And they crack the molecule tocreate ethylene. And ethylene is

(49:19):
used in many plastic products,including a lot of single use
plastics. And so what thisfacility creates is they take
gas as their feedstock andcreate little plastic pellets
called nurdles. They look likebabies. And so then those
nurdles are then shipped toother facilities that then

(49:44):
create plastic products fromthem. And the cracker is I
believe, expecting to produce1.6 million metric tons of
noodles every year. Just out ofthis one facility. And so what's
important to keep in mind is weYes, to your point about

(50:07):
sacrifice zones, we already knowwhat happens to people living
near petrochemical facilities.
This is not like the early daysof the shale boom in
Pennsylvania where there weren'ta lot of health studies that had
been done. And policymakers wereoperating without a lot of

(50:27):
health information, we alreadyhave a stretch of over 150
petrochemical facilities andrefineries in Louisiana, and it
is called cancer alley, becausethey have a significantly higher

(50:48):
cancer rate than the nationalaverage. There are
epidemiological studies thathave been done in that area that
point to increased risk ofcancer, like leukemia. And so
we're, we know, there is causefor concern, and yet we are
moving forward as though thereisn't cause for concern. And the

(51:10):
thing that is very important toremember is, with this plant
opening, and it did, it startedproduction. Two weeks ago, I
don't know when the when thepodcast is going to air, but mid
November, I was going to

Dina Rasor (51:33):
learn in already there already. There's articles
about them flaring, you know,putting this you're not
controlling the gas and flaringthis stuff off. I know, because
I live near a Chevron refinerynot close that close. But they
have these big flares. And theysay, oops, sorry, you know, so
it's already it was barelyopened, it's having

(51:55):
environmental problems.

Alison Steele (51:57):
Well, and the thing to remember is that the
people impacted by this facilityare not just the people living
around it, certainly we knowthat there are adverse health
impacts tied to living inproximity to petrochemical
development. But we also knowthat the cracker is going to

(52:18):
need gas to operate. And sothere's a projection that
something like 1000, new wellsare going to need to be drilled
every five years just to supplythis one cracker. And there are
other petrochemical facilitiesproposed for the region. So this

(52:41):
is something that is veryimportant to remember, it's not
just this one facility, it meansan entire network of supply
chain infrastructure to supportit. And all of that
infrastructure itself is goingto have health impacts to the

(53:03):
people living nearby.

Dina Rasor (53:05):
Okay, so what what's going on on the ground? What
organs around that and other youknow, based on what they've
learned from other petrochemical plants, what did the
local with local people doing

Alison Steele (53:19):
their there's actually an organized group
working on the ground to monitorair and water quality around the
cracker. There is an airmonitoring network that has been
in place, I believe there's eaude definitely over a year of

(53:39):
baseline information. And EHP isinvolved in analyzing the
information that's that's comingin from that monitor network.
And so there are also residentswho are being trained to collect
air samples that can then betaken to labs for analysis. And

(54:01):
then in the in the coming monthsnow that it's up and running.
Well, you know, we hope to beable to get some better insight
into the the air quality impactsbut I will note, even even
monitor networks have their ownlimitations, the monitors that
are up look at pm 2.5, which isfine particulate matter 2.5

(54:26):
microns in size, and volatileorganic volatile organic
compounds VOCs. But youmentioned flaring. And there's
an indication at this point thatthe main pollutants coming off
of the flares are probably morealong the lines of nitrous
oxides, which don't get pickedup by by the monitors in that

(54:50):
network. So every every studyhas its limitations, every
monitor, a monitoring approachhas its limitations. And just
because Has, you're not pickingsomething up. Just because
you're not seeing somethingdoesn't mean that it's safe. It

(55:10):
means that you could be missingsomething if the winds blowing
in the wrong direction or yourmonitor doesn't, doesn't pick up
information about a certain typeof compound. No, no results does
not guarantee safety.

Dina Rasor (55:26):
So that's kind of like put, you know what I like
to think of this and I, I readup about how, you know, you and
other groups kept trying whenthis plant was being proposed,
inject injecting the healthproblems and projecting ahead of
time. And, you know, it feels tome like this is trying to put
the toothpaste back in the tube.
In other words, if this isspewed out, now, you're going to

(55:48):
have to go and see in thesacrifice zone and see who has
been hurt and where thepollution is. And it's, it's
astonishing to me that thepoliticians, I mean, this
happens in California, but notreally as much because
California is are much moreobnoxious. You know, we're not
doing this. But it's the idea ofthat plant got designed. And I'm

(56:15):
sure every inch of the way therewere community people trying to
do something about the healthpeople trying to do something
about it. All those things,people that can look, you can
look ahead and see this is goingto be a problem. It's not just
what you're making the plastic,which is going to end up in
little little knives and forksthat get thrown away and turn
into microplastics. But you'regoing to also have this local,

(56:38):
and who knows with the wind andeverything else where the wind
roses go and whatever, thatyou're you allowed something to
come in, be studied, beapproved, be put up. And you
know, the first couple of weeksof their operation, they're
already having problems andtheir does. And so you being in

(56:59):
Health Organization, you'rehaving to take catch up because
nobody thought about that, orthey didn't want to know about
it while it was being made. Andmaybe you can talk a little bit
about that, because I know youguys have been involved with
trying to say this might not besuch a good idea.

Alison Steele (57:20):
Yeah, and the the thing that is frustrating about
how this plant was pitched as itwas supposed to be an economic
driver for the region and helpreinvigorate the region, when
instead it's, it's going tocause a drain between people

(57:43):
leaving, because they're afraidfor their health, or, you know,
if they can leave, if they can'tleave, they're going to be
seeing health impacts. Andthat's, that's going to result
in negative economic impacts forthe region. So to looking at a
net negative, and it's, it'sunfortunate that very often you

(58:12):
need to see an adverse effectbefore action is taken. You
know, we could be learning fromcancer alley in Louisiana, and
asking, asking hard questionsabout is this actually what's

(58:34):
best for the region? Or do wewant to try to push for a more
just transition to renewableenergy that includes meaningful
opportunities, high quality,good jobs for people living in
communities that have been hostto fossil fuel extraction for

(58:56):
generations?

Dina Rasor (59:02):
Well, I think, you know, I don't try to I'm trying
not to be you know, Debbiedowner here. I see that I know
how frustrating this is becauseyou look at something and you
tell the people I can see intothe future based on all the
other things that have happenedand you know, we're going to
have this trouble, but if the ifthe political will, isn't there,

(59:24):
to or if the if the company isyou know, putting money in
everybody's campaign, and thenand whatever the if it feels
kind of frustrating, but I thinkthat luckily, the climate
concerns is also getting peopleinterested again in pollution,
you know, and starting to seethat but what what kind of plans

(59:46):
do you I mean, do you see in thefuture you've got a new
governor, and that kind of thingand a new lunch they do see any
possibility of trying to you Youknow, mitigate this stuff that's
already there and try to stopit, the neck, you know, stop

(01:00:07):
more of this kind of stuff frombeing done.

Alison Steele (01:00:10):
Well, interesting that you mentioned our new
governor as he was the attorneygeneral who oversaw the grand
jury report that I mentionedearlier. So I would like to
think that he keeps that in thefront of his mind when dealing
with this issue as he entersoffice. You know, to your point

(01:00:33):
about political will, I think itreally, ultimately comes down to
a matter of awareness, andshifting the narrative, and
making sure that peopleunderstand the health impacts,
the, you know, the economics,the climate impacts, you know,

(01:00:54):
climate has really taken a frontseat in this argument. But, you
know, you said this right at thebeginning of the podcast, Tina,
you know, it's not just climate,it's a it's a health issue and
public health is is inextricablytied to climate impacts, as
well. You know, no matter how wewant to attack the issue, you

(01:01:17):
know, if it's a if it's aclimate focus, if it's a health
focus, if it's an economicfocus, we're all we're all going
to arrive at the same point thatwe we are not in a position to
be doubling down on fossil fuelsright now. We need to be
prioritizing public health andhealth protective actions. And

(01:01:45):
more more drilling, morefracking, more petrochemical
development, those areantithetical to public health,
at least, as far as we'rehandling them right now.

Dina Rasor (01:02:01):
Yeah, well, I, you know, I sort of I, in the past
10 years, I've run into someclimate deniers, oh, isn't bad,
oh, it isn't happening,including some scientists. And I
always say, Okay, if even ifyou, let's just erase the thing
in the climate, even that'shappening, they're getting rid
of fossil fuel. Fossil fuel iscausing way beyond just methane

(01:02:26):
and co2 going the atmosphere,fossil fuel has had its own
baseline, like you were sayingthese cancer, alleys and
everything else for years. So Ialways say, Well, if you're not,
if you don't believe in climate,but if they start taking fossil
fuel out of the thing, a lot ofthese people do believe in
pollution. You know, they knowthere's pollution, and some of
them are very much worried thatclimate would take away from

(01:02:48):
pollution mitigation. And I'vealways said, Well, you know, if
you whether you like it or not,we get rid of the fossil fuel,
that pollution will go down.
Because if you're not usingfossil fuel, you know, if you
don't care how much methane andco2 goes into the atmosphere, if
you don't believe it, you shouldbe happy that it's not going to
cause cancer. So Greg, is thereanything else you would like to

(01:03:13):
ask or else and anything moreyou want to say? Because we're
coming towards the end of ourhour?

Greg Williams (01:03:21):
Yeah, I will say that I'm particularly intrigued
to hear about your work inEurope, especially since I don't
think of that as an area ofshale gas production. I think it
is interior, especially now withthe conflict was Russia, a big
importer. But we've alreadycovered a lot of very

(01:03:43):
interesting ground tonight. AndI'd be delighted to thank you
for your visit tonight and moveright on to scheduling your next
visit.

Dina Rasor (01:03:52):
Yeah, I always I always say that to people, when
something new happens orsomething else happens, call us
because we love to do follow up.
Or if you guys have a bigvictory. I'd love to have you on
to talk about, okay, you havethis big victory. How did you
get there, because this is we'reall learning. We're all
learning. This is all especiallyclimate stuff. This is all new
territory, and pollution fromfossil fuel. And fossil fuel is

(01:04:14):
not new, but people are becomingreally aware that this isn't
going to work anymore.

Alison Steele (01:04:23):
Well, I'd be thrilled to come back for
another visit, the more we canget people talking about these
issues, the closer we can get tocreating critical mass that can
push for change. So

Dina Rasor (01:04:36):
and I always say I always say this at the end. We
are we are also whistleblowerexperts, you know, whistleblower
or source experts, if anybodyand you know no other lawyers,
and I've been involved inhelping whistleblowers for 40
years to wait too long. But ifyou know of anybody that has a

(01:04:57):
concern and whatever needsguidance That's what we're,
that's that's our next step asthe money's getting spent. We
are saying, Okay, sendwhistleblowers to us. We've
never had anyone caught andfired. For two years, I've never
had anybody gotten fired,because I'm very careful about
it. But that's kind of the nextway to go is to help people have

(01:05:19):
to go to have to come outanonymously or on the record.
And we try to keep people tostay anonymous, because it's too
high a price. But we can thenget that to the right people to
try to show that this is goingon from the inside. And the
problem so what if you know ifanybody calls up, or if any of

(01:05:42):
our listeners know if anybodycalls up, we have or go to our
website, we have ways totransport men information that
is safe.

Greg Williams (01:05:53):
So I think I'm gonna go to bed tonight fixing
not only about how manyequivalent credit cards I eat
every week, but now I'm awarethat I breathe in a certain
number as well. So I want tothank you for visiting us
tonight. And thank our listenersfor joining us for another
episode of climate moneywatchdog