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Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Alison Steele, Environmental Health Project - The Science Is In, Shale Gas Development Harming Public Health - Arming People To Prevent, Reduce Harm

On February 27, the Physicians for Social Responsibility PA, the League of Women Voters of PA, and the Department of Environmental and Energy Engineering at Duquesne University hosted a Shale Gas and Public Health Conference in Pittsburgh and online.

The Conference brought together scientists, public health experts, industry leaders, and advocacy groups to explore the latest research and insights on unconventional oil and gas development, its environmental impact and associated health risks, and community wins and responses.

PA Environment Digest is highlighting the remarks of several speakers at the Conference on these important issues.

Alison L. Steele, MBA

Alison L. Steele, MBA is Executive Director of the Environmental Health Project, 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 oil and gas development.

Steele earned her undergraduate degree in physics from Drew University in Madison, NJ and her MBA in Sustainable Business Practices from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh.

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

She also 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.

Here is a transcript of her remarks.

Thank you for being here, thank you for having me here. The Environmental Health Project has been a long supporter of this Conference in a variety of ways, and I'm thrilled and honored to be a part of the health and research panel this morning.

EHP, for those of you who are not familiar with us, EHP was founded more than a decade ago after residents in frontline communities that were hosting shale gas infrastructure began experiencing strange symptoms, headaches, nosebleeds, dizziness, nausea, difficulty breathing, things that they couldn't explain.

There was very little research on the subject of health impacts of shale gas development at the time.

So our team quickly assembled and stepped in to listen to their concerns, gather data about their symptoms, their air and water quality, so we could learn whether there was a connection and what people could do to better protect their health.

The Science Is In

Fast-forward to today, the science is in. We have scores of peer-reviewed research studies, hundreds more investigations, painting a clear picture that shale gas development is harmful to human health.

As more of that information has come to light over the years, thanks to research institutions and the academic community, we have shifted our work from answering the first question we usually get, which is, "What's happening to me?" to the second question, "What can I do about it?"

And to help answer that question, we put useful advocacy tools in the hands of frontline community residents and organizations fighting for their protection.

We do that by taking place-based insights that we get through data collection and analysis, around sites of concern, distilling the ever-growing body of knowledge from the scientific community and marrying those two in order to effectively educate decision-makers who are tasked with protecting the well-being of their constituents.

Now, that communications piece is critically important because, unfortunately, simply providing facts tends not to be effective.

I think most of the people in this room, myself included, wish that that were not the case, but we have incredibly powerful lobbies fighting to keep the oil and gas and plastics industries alive, and their narratives take plausible deniability and spin it into an aura of safety and environmental protection.

Making The Consequences Of Gas Development Concrete

And that's why it's critical to take these issues and make the consequences as concrete and relatable as possible for decision-makers.

The Pitt studies Pouné mentioned, demanded by residents, paid for by tax dollars, overseen by the Department of Health, conducted by researchers at Pitt.

Great work with damning evidence about cancer, asthma, and low birth weights.

But, we already had a wealth of information available about the health hazards associated with this industry, certainly enough to justify action before the studies were conducted.

And now that we have the studies showing clear results, our governor hasn't even acknowledged their existence.

And speaking of his administration, I will give some credit where it is due.

Despite limited budget and staff, despite what is clearly the fourth gas-friendly administration in a row, we have seen some more action from the Department of Health in the last year or so than ever before, streamlining their resident complaint process, sharing information about health impacts of shale gas development with medical professionals through their Project ECHO [with Penn State Medical] series, developing educational materials for schools and families about air quality.

[Project ECHO webinars: Part I - Environmental Impacts; Part 2 - Health Impacts.]

And they informed us that they are currently reviewing health literature that has been released since their last lit review in 2019.

These actions are all among the things that they committed to, at the release of the Pitt studies.

And for anyone who was at that event, you will remember how contentious the environment was.

There was a roomful of impacted residents telling painful stories.

Not long before that, we had representatives from the DOH do a Frackland Tour, with Lois Bower-Bjornson, who I believe is on the agenda later today.

And, at both of those events, I saw people reacting to things that they clearly were not familiar with.

And I'll say that it is profoundly meaningful to put a face and a story on what otherwise might simply be statistics.

Now, it should not be the responsibility of impacted residents to advocate for their own protections, period.

But, what we've seen from them over the years is that they're really good at it, because they need to be.

It's their lives and their health on the line, and they understand their experiences better than anybody else.

So the work that we're doing at EHP strives to elevate the stories of impacted residents to provide context to the data that we have, and to provide site-specific information to residents who want to back up their stories with relevant science.

I'm going to share just a little bit about that in the brief time that I have remaining.

Air Pollution Mapping

Some of our most recent efforts at EHP include air pollution dispersion mapping around sites of concern, using weather data and topography, paired with networks of air monitors measuring PM 2.5 and VOCs.

With all of this information, we can understand how parcels of air arrived at the monitor and reconstruct that pathway to illustrate whether the pollution was plausibly emitted by a nearby facility, be it a well powder compressor station or cracker plant.

And so, think about it this way, you're a local leader, a resident, is talking to you about health symptoms that her family's experiencing.

She then explains that exposure to a certain chemical causes that type of symptom.

Furthermore, a nearby facility emits that type of chemical, and there's data to show how often her house is downwind of that facility receiving chemical emissions.

That narrative is really hard to ignore. It's really impactful when you start to look at the context of the issue.

Reducing, Preventing Harm

So public health, in summary, is about harm reduction. Better yet, harm prevention.

And it is our hope that efforts like these, across frontline communities, will serve to get better protections, to secure better protections for people who are being impacted.

But, we also hope that easier access to information about pollution dynamics, plus health effects of compounds emitted by these facilities, plus best practices for communication and engagement with decision-makers, plus the all-important lived experience of frontline residents will help to shift the perception about the ongoing dangers of shale gas development in a way that can no longer be overlooked or dismissed.

And so, that way we can start to stop these harms before they're experienced.

This fight will continue to be a group effort making use of scientific expertise, lived experience, and the ability to convey that message effectively to those in power.

And on that front, I am honored to be a part of that broad conversation today with all of you and on this specific conversation, with this health panel, as we move into Q&A. Thank you.

Visit the PA League of Women Voters Shale Gas and Public Health in 2025 - New Directions webpage for videos of the Conference presentation [when posted].

2025 Shale Gas Health Conference Presentations:

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Dr. Pouné Saberi, MD Speaks On How Healthcare Providers Can Better Serve Individuals Exposed To Health Threats From Shale Gas Development [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Alison Steele, Environmental Health Project - The Science Is In, Shale Gas Development Harming Public Health - Arming People To Prevent, Reduce Harm [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Lois Bower-Bjornson - What Its Like Living In Frackland - Residents Talk About Dealing With The Health, Environmental Impacts Of Shale Gas [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Bob Donnan - 15 Years Of Shale Gas Development Through Aerial Photos - Hiding In Plain Sight [PaEN]

-- Shale Gas & Public Health Conference: Gillian Graber, Protect PT -- We Need To Work Together, Pool Our Knowledge To Push Back Against This Industry That's Harming Our Communities [PaEN]

Resource Links - Health:

-- Frackland Video Tour, with Lois Bower-Bjornson, Clean Air Council

-- Part I - Environmental Impacts: State Dept. Of Health, Penn State Medical Webinars On Caring For Persons Living & Working In Communities With Oil & Natural Gas Extraction [PaEN]

-- Part II - Health Impacts: State Dept. Of Health, Penn State Medical Webinars On Caring For Persons Living & Working In Communities With Oil & Natural Gas Extraction [PaEN]

-- University Of Pittsburgh School Of Public Health Studies Find Shale Gas Wells Can Make Asthma Worse; Children Have An Increased Chance Of Developing Lymphoma Cancer; Slightly Lower Birth Weights [PaEN]

-- State Dept. Of Health Apologizes For Not Listening To Communities Suffering Health Impacts From Shale Gas Development; New Health Study Results ‘Just The Tip Of The Iceberg’ [PaEN]