GRAND JUNCTION — It’s been 18 years since Steve Mobaldi and his late wife, Chris, first got burning eyes and nosebleeds when oil and gas drilling came to their Garfield County neighborhood. In the interim, hundreds of others have complained about health problems. Dozens of studies have looked for a link between those problems and drilling.
One of those studies, done partly in the Mobaldis’ old neighborhood nearly five years ago, found enough emissions in the air to potentially cause illnesses. But, before that link could be strengthened by researchers at the Colorado School of Public Health, the oil and gas industry complained about the quality of the research. County commissioners dropped the study contract.
Now, another air-pollution-measuring study is underway in Garfield County, and it is being touted as the research that will finally help connect the dots on drilling and health. But to Mobaldi and others who have been seeking answers for so long, its reliance on drilling-industry funding and access raises the same old questions.
“It’s all politics to me. They promise to do something and never come to a conclusion. It’s all just so wrong,” said Mobaldi, four years after his wife died at the age of 63 after bewildering and debilitating illnesses that included pituitary tumors and suspected brain damage.
The newest study that has been underway for nearly two years is being done by the Colorado State University Department of Atmospheric Science — the research entity requested by the industry. The study, which was contracted to CSU by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, relies on industry funding and on industry access to well pads.
It is designed to complement the earlier School of Public Health research but to be more comprehensive. It uses new mobile technologies to measure specific emissions at different sources around well pads.
Colored smoke shows where the emissions travel in the air, and measurement devices calculate how much methane gas and compounds like benzene and toluene are in the emissions.
This baseline information on emissions is key, researchers say, to then be able to make a firm link — if there is one — between the emissions and those with health problems.
CSU is doing a related study in the oil fields of northern Front Range counties. The results are expected to be available in late 2015 and in 2016.
“I think the 2016 data really holds the most promise,” said Mike Van Dyke, head of the environmental epidemiology, occupational health and toxicology section of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Van Dyke made his comments this summer during a gathering of researchers, academicians and health officials at a symposium on what’s known and still unknown about drilling and health.
“There is a huge amount of holes in what we know,” Van Dyke said.
“There is plausibility for a connection, but not evidence,” said Jennifer Peel, an environmental epidemiologist at Colorado State University.
The difficulty in pinning down health connections to drilling can be partly blamed on the changing stew of more than 600 chemicals used and released in varying concentrations during the fracking phase of drilling.
There are other problematic sources of potential health problems on and around drilling pads such as silica in the air from the sand used in fracking. It is a known lung irritant. So is the diesel from the trucks that make frequent trips to and from drilling pads.
Other possible pollutants and health factors are hard to rule out. Do drilling pad neighbors smoke? Do they work in an environment with other contamination?
“The complexity of air pollution makes it difficult to establish cause,” said Dr. Anthony Gerber,
a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health and a member of the Colorado Air Quality Commission.
Researchers know that some of the fracking chemicals used and released during the drilling process can cause cancers, damage lungs and make neurological systems go haywire. Some studies note “suggestions,” “possibilities” and “cause for concern” with drilling pollution and illnesses.
Jeff Collett Jr., the researcher leading the latest CSU monitoring studies, said he expects to be able to hand over data that eventually will make definitive health connections possible — or rule them out.
He said it is not ideal to have to rely on the oil and gas companies for funding, but not enough is available in state or federal funding. Besides, he said, the oil and gas companies should be footing the bill for this type of research since they are generating the emissions that need studying.
Denver toxicologist Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum said he does not know about the efficacy of the new studies. But he knows about the failure of earlier research.
He used the term “baloney” to summarize research done thus far. Teitelbaum said he hasn’t seen any progress since he testified before Congress a decade ago to urge meaningful study about what he views as a potential health hazard.
“The reality of the situation is that anything you read now is pure flack. Nobody knows what’s happening,” he said. “It’s frustrating.”
Doug Flanders, director of policy and external affairs for the Colorado Oil & Gas Association, points to more than a dozen studies from around the country that he said conclude there are no significant risks from drilling operations.
“Anything we have seen has never shown there are ill effects on health,” said Flanders, who welcomes the data from the CSU research.
Mobaldi said he wishes he had the know-how to do research himself to establish a link between drilling and what happened to his wife. All he can do is point to what he cites as “proof” — the box of her cremated remains in a closet.
“I just wonder how much longer they are going to be able to hide this,” he said. “How much longer are they going to be able to do nothing?”
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957, nlofholm@denverpost.com or twitter.com/nlofholm
