People desiring open space, fresh air, green vistas and solitude frequently seek out rural areas, and that’s what Tim Warner and his family were looking for when they moved to Washington County in 1999.

As a bonus, their blue frame house with a big backyard in Robinson, north of McDonald, is a stone’s throw from the Montour Trail.

But some of what they were fleeing when they left their apartment in Moon is even worse, particularly the heavy truck traffic and foul air.

About this project Pollution science is clear even if the skies are not. For every ton of airborne pollution, there’s a well-defined impact on human health, and more specifically, mortality. In 2010, the Post-Gazette published its own epidemiological study of pollution’s impacts that showed 14 counties in southwestern Pennsylvania had 14,636 excess deaths from 2000 through 2008, when compared with the national average. Many of those additional deaths showed up in municipalities downwind from pollution-spewing, coal-based power, coke and steel plants. As part of the Post-Gazette’s effort to update the 2010 “Mapping Mortality” project, Nicholas Muller, an economist at Carnegie Mellon University, was asked to study current air pollution and related mortality, and that review predictably — given the closure of many coal-fired power plants — shows pollution-related deaths in decline. However, the Muller study also shows that deaths from locally generated pollution were in decline from 2008 until 2011, but then increased by about 100 deaths from 2011 to 2014. He said this reflects increases in locally emitted pollution — most likely from increases in local economic activity and the shale gas industry.

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Goose hunting and walks on the trail ended for them in about 2016 with the drilling and fracking of three nearby shale-gas wells and construction of two gas-compressor stations in the Cibus-Imperial complex less than a half mile southwest of their house.

Family members say they’ve become prisoners in their own home — a bunker sealing them off from truck noise and exhaust and other forms of pollution that triggers asthma attacks, nosebleeds, headaches and other health problems.

The Post-Gazette wrote extensively in the spring about high numbers of cancer cases, many of them rare types, diagnosed in children and young adults in the Canon-McMillan School District and in rural counties with shale-gas operations. While no study shows a direct link between cancers and shale-gas drilling, that is not the case with some of the other ailments affecting children in the region.

The three young people mentioned in this story (James Hilston/Post-Gazette)

The link between the Warners’ health problems and pollution is reflected in a recent compendium of 1,778 peer-reviewed studies about shale-gas industry operations. It found that “90.3% of all original research studies published from 2016-2018 on the health impacts of fracking show a positive association with harm or potential harm.”

Released in June, the sixth edition of the Compendium of Scientific, Medical and Media Findings Demonstrating Risks and Harms of Fracking (Unconventional Gas and Oil Extraction) also found that a majority of the studies show potential for, or actual evidence of, water contamination and significant air-pollutant emissions. The compendium, compiled by Concerned Health Professionals of NY and Physicians for Social Responsibility, is updated regularly with new studies.

But, in response to Post-Gazette inquiries about the health impacts of shale oil and gas operations, David J. Spigelmyer, president of The Marcellus Shale Coalition, an industry group, said in an eight-page statement that “protecting and improving our environment is our industry’s top priority.” Pennsylvania’s shale industry “has a demonstrated track record of safe, responsible and highly compliant operations,” he said.

Coalition spokesman John Sutter said Mr. Spigelmyer declined to be available for an in-person interview.

“Shale development is a safe, tightly regulated process that’s governed by nearly 70 federal, state and local regulations and monitored by 30 state and federal agencies,” the coalition said, claiming emissions below “health protective levels” with “no credible link to cancer.”

“We are disappointed that some activists choose to sensationalize tragedy and make inflammatory suggestions that run counter to the views of respected medical experts, top environmental and health regulators, and because of scientific data and research as an industry made up of tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians, protecting and enhancing the health and safety of our environment and communities where we’re privileged to work is a top priority.”

The Warners, however, say they are are convinced that their health troubles are linked to pollution, including that from truck traffic and shale-gas operations.

Tim, 58, had to give up goose hunting and often stays inside because he can’t breathe outdoors.

“He’s getting worse,” said his wife, Brenda Ann, 51, who said she is the only one in the family without asthma. “He can’t be on the porch, especially with trucks going by with that smell of fuel.”

Their major concern, though, is the health of their daughters.

Savannah, 21, developed asthma while attending Fort Cherry High School. So did her sister, Serena, 15, who still has trouble breathing what they describe as “the heavy air” whenever she steps outside their home or goes to school. The Fort Cherry campus also is surrounded by shale-gas-well drilling and fracking operations.

Serena began having headaches and nosebleeds in 2016, mostly at school, leading to her diagnosis of Von Willebrand disease — a disorder in which the blood-clotting protein known as the Von Willebrand factor is defective or absent. The disease can be genetic, but Ms. Warner said she has found no cases of it in their family history. There’s also an acquired form of the disease.

A 2009 German Research Center for Environmental Health study, among others, found that “the Von Willebrand factor antigen showed a consistent decrease,” indicating a reduction in clotting ability, “in association with almost all air pollutants.” Other studies have shown that pollution can impact the factor but not cause the disease.

Parents of several other Fort Cherry students told the Post-Gazette that their children also have had sudden and unexplained asthma attacks, headaches and nosebleeds at school. One student, in addition to asthma, has joint problems and lab results show levels of benzene in her blood that her guardian said are elevated. Benzene is a pollutant generated by shale gas operations.

Serena’s mother says medication for her blood disorder has helped, but added that the main reason for her improvement is that she stays indoors.

For the entire family, the rural lifestyle amid shale-gas operations have become “just stressful,” Ms. Warner said.

Mysteries of shale-gas pollution