A coalition of community and environmental health groups in Wyoming has released has released first-of-its-kind research combining air monitoring methods with new biomonitoring techniques to determine if toxic air emissions from gas operations could be detected in the bodies of nearby residents – and they can.

The study, When the Wind Blows: Tracking Toxic Chemicals in Gas Fields and Impacted Communities, found evidence of eight hazardous chemicals emitted from Pavillion, Wyoming gas infrastructure in the urine of study participants.

Many of those chemicals were present in the participants’ bodies at concentrations far exceeding background averages in the US population.

“No matter which way the wind blows, gas development involves so many emissions sources that people can’t help but to be exposed to toxic chemicals from their operations. Unfortunately, this is what everybody who is living with oil or gas drilling now has to look forward to if that drilling leads to production,” Deb Thomas, director of ShaleTest who lives in Wyoming and was one of the study leaders, said.

The study was launched by environmental health groups, science and health experts in Pavillion during 2014.

They say it is the first study that combines environmental sampling with the monitoring of body tissues or fluids of community members living in very close proximity to gas production equipment and activities.

The Pavillion/Muddy Ridge field has been developed as a conventional field since the 1950s, but over the past 20 years the field’s operations have started encroaching on homes and farms.

The field was initially developed with conventional vertical wells, although fraccing has been used in some of the almost 170 wells in more recent years.

The Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality concluded toxins in the air and water were linked with the field several years ago, however the state declined to conduct further monitoring to better quantify the volatile organic compound emissions, so the local community elected to undertake the work itself.

John Fenton, the anti-fraccing crusader who recently toured Australia for Lock The Gate, said his family had experienced phantom odours, rashes, hair loss, respiratory conditions, neurological problems, epileptic seizures and cancer.

“These symptoms match up with the known effects of the toxic chemicals emitted in our air from gas production operations. This biomonitoring project was an opportunity to find out if the chemicals we know are in the air, are also in our bodies,” Fenton said.

Researchers found VOCs in the air emitted from gas operations in Pavillion and in the air immediately surrounding people working and living in the area.

Later, researchers found evidence of these same chemicals in study participants’ bodies. The study focused on VOCs, including carcinogenic BTEX chemicals [benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene] which are known to be hazardous to human health, even at low levels.

Of course, the study admits that VOCs are ubiquitous in products in the home, and it is possible that the VOCs detected in participants’ bodies came from multiple sources.

Air sampling found VOCs present in the air near Pavillion consistent with those associated with oil and gas production and its associated infrastructure, and they were occasionally in excess of limits set by regulators.

The results from both human and air monitoring indicate that communities living or working near gas development operations may be intermittently exposed to complex mixtures of chemical substances associated with oil and gas production.

Little information exists about how VOCs in mixtures interact with each other and in the human body, but scientific research indicates that in some cases VOCs might interact in ways that increase health risks in humans.

Hazardous breakdown products of VOCs were present in the urine of study participants at much higher levels than those found in the general population, with one example up to ten times higher.

The report’s authors have recommended additional biomonitoring testing and further investigation into impacts of cumulative exposure to multiple chemicals.

The group also wants gas companies to stop promoting natural gas as “clean” and “safe.”

The Wyoming study follows a Colorado State University review, conducted over three years, that found that emissions are at their highest during the flowback phase from gas wells, with ethane rates at 0.31 grams per second, propane at 0.15 g/s and other short-chain hydrocarbons that are important constituents of natural gas.

That study also looked at air toxins such as benzene (0.04 g/s) and toluene (0.27 g/s).

A 2014 study of the Marcellus shale in Pennsylvania collected readings of emissions of greenhouse gases that were up to 1000 times higher than those estimated by the Environmental Protection Agency.