Full Title: Fracking With "Forever Chemicals" in Texas
Author(s): Dusty Horwitt, J.D. and Barbara Gottlieb, and Gary Allison
Publisher(s): Physicians for Social Responsibility
Publication Date: February 20, 2023
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Previously unpublicized information unearthed by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) shows that since at least 2013, oil and gas companies used in Texas oil and gas wells more than 43,000 pounds of a class of extremely toxic and persistent chemicals known as PFAS. However, gaps in Texas’s disclosure rules prevent the public from knowing how widely PFAS – or other toxic chemicals – have been used in oil and gas drilling and extraction. These findings raise concerns that Texans may unknowingly be exposed to highly hazardous substances.
By shielding from public view the chemicals injected into oil and gas wells, trade secret claims and other gaps in disclosure rules raise the potential that Texans may be directly exposed, or their groundwater and well water may be exposed, to PFAS and other toxic chemicals from hundreds or even thousands of oil and gas production wells.