Diesel truck traffic is responsible for emitting harmful, microscopic particles into the air, according to Dr. Michael McCawley’s extensive research at West Virginia University’s School of Public Health. Those particles are then breathed in by surrounding, residential communities and are tied to such afflictions as heart disease, cancer, and pediatric asthma, among other ailments.
Dr. McCawley’s study also links health issue and their amplification around fracking sites due to much heavier and concentrated diesel truck traffic in those areas. McCawley’s research shows it to be true right there in his own backyard of West Virginia. And before you try to pretend that “those areas” are somewhere far off, distant in a vast field, alone with no one for miles, think again. More and more frequently our minerals rights are being sold out from under us, under our parks, our cemeteries, our universities, forests, our farms and homes. No, fracking can just as easily cross your own front door (whether you like it or not) and they’ll be bringing their trucks with them.
McCawley stated:
“The lung is kind of like a tree built upside down. Its branches at the top. the trunk being the trachea, the breathing tube going down, and then they go down to the alveoli which are essentially what the leaves of the tree would be, but the alveoli are the tiny sacs in your lungs that open and close. The ultra-fine particles can deposit anywhere in the branches and anywhere in the leaves — the alveoli.”
McCawley also stated that the particles being emitted are not harmful so much because they are poisonous, but because their size makes them so easy to deposit and build up in the lungs. Come again? Let’s just hope he meant to say that the particles are actually doubly dangerous BECAUSE they are poisonous AND build up in the lungs. That seems to make more sense. These nasty particles are so small they’re estimated in at one-tenth of a hair’s width or smaller. However, they can become much larger once they begin clumping together in the lungs.
McCawley also stated that there is no set of standards or regulations for particles this small in nature currently. All active policies are written and in place for larger particles. To reign in this hazardous microscopic dust cloud the EPA will need to change its standards and measurements to meet McCawley’s newfound evidence. McCawley believes the EPA would need to change its evaluation method from one based on mass to one that counts airborne particles in order to be effective in the future.
While folks wait to see how all that pans out, they’ll know in the meantime one more way the fracking industry is making America cough up a lung.
You can watch an awkward local report here.
H/T to Take 10.
Dylan Hock is a writer, professor, videographer and social activist. He earned an MFA in Writing from Naropa University in 2003 and has been an Occupier since Oct., 2011, both nationally and locally in Michigan. He is published in a number of little magazines and has an essay on the muzzling of Ezra Pound included in the anthology Star Power: The Impact Of Branded Celebrity due out July of 2014 by Praeger. He is also a contributing writer for Take Ten, Addicting Info and Green Action News. Follow him on Google+! Also, stop on by to “Like” and follow Liberal America on Facebook.