Oil and gas industry officials are coming out swinging in light of a new environmental assessment claiming Texas children will face severe health threats caused by pollution from oil and gas production.
Related: UTA: Air Contamination Not Inherent in Fracking
Last week,environmental groups Earthworks and the Clean Air Task Force released a new report titled “Gasping for Breath” that predicts smog from oil and gas fields will cause nearly 144,500 asthma attacks in Texas children within nine years.
The pro-industry group, North Texans for Natural Gas (NTNG) quickly shot back, claiming that the groups behind the report are willfully denying facts and data in order to pave the way for greater federal control over Texas.
This isn’t the first time that NTNG has criticized Earthworks. Over the years they have countered the environmentalists’ claims as being unscientific, misrepresentative, rhetorical trickery and shamefully using children as ‘political props’.
“Groups funded to oppose fracking are threatening our health, not protecting it. The latest ‘report’ from established anti-oil and natural gas groups used misinformed ozone projections and openly ignored advances in technology that are improving air quality. Ozone levels have been trending downward for decades even as oil and natural gas production has increased. Regulators, scholars and international organizations credit fracking and the increased use of natural gas with improving air quality.”
The study highlights national health concerns by 2025:
- Nationally, there will be more than 750,000 summertime asthma attacks in children under the age of 18 due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.
- Each summer, there will be more than 2,000 asthma-related emergency room visits and over 600 respiratory related hospital admissions nationally due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution. * EPA also looked at mortality associated with ozone pollution. We excluded mortality from our analysis because there is a higher degree of uncertainty associated with this estimate. 9
- Children will miss 500,000 days of school nationally each year due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.
- Each year, adults must deal with 1.5 million days when they are forced to rest or reduce activity due to ozone smog resulting from oil and gas pollution.
At the end of last month, the University of Texas at Arlington released a new study focusing on the Eagle Ford Shale Play, finding that air contamination around fracking sites is likely not inherent to the oil and gas extraction process.