Best Link For The Month? Fracking Pollution Story Retracted; Incorrect Analysis Of The Data -- August 11, 2016

Update

August 15, 2016: bottom line -- when natural gas is extracted from the earth, there will be associated PAHs. The level of PAHs are so low as to be irrelevant. In addition, there is nothing to suggest that any method of natural gas extraction is any better or any worse than any other method when it comes to PAHs. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are a group of more than 100 different chemicals that are released from burning coal, oil, gasoline, trash, tobacco, wood, or other organic substances such as charcoal-broiled meat. They are also called polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons. PAHs are ubiquitous in our environment. 

August 15, 2016: the reader also notes that previous headlines regarding this "study" suggest that this "study" was about fracking. Fracking may have been the target for the investment in this study but fracking is reduced to a coincidental in the actual design and research "objective" of the study which was air, not fracking, something somewhat confirmed by its redaction from the latest iteration of the study's subject line, "emissions of PAHs from natural gas extraction into air." Nothing about fracking in the title; it was redacted.

The reader notes that a study of fracking would have necessitated assessments before, during, after, and directly related to fracking, and not simply an assignment of guilt by association on the order of a bank client's mere presence at the scene when a bank is robbed.

The reader had much more to say, but I will leave it at that for now.

August 15, 2016: I can only "see" this (see original post) as scientific fraud. An erroneous study was deliberately published to move an agenda and "peer reviewers" did not catch the egregious errors. It appears this is not the first time these authors have done this, including the later retraction.

A reader really helped me out, doing the research I did not have time to do (or probably could not do even if I tried), on the study that was retracted regarding fracking and air pollution. I think the entire article bordered on scientific fraud. The reader provided quite an in-depth look at the article. Below are his comments with minimal editing.

From a reader:

1. The reader agrees that the reported miscalculatioins are as jaw dropping as the range of their divergence from the adjusted "corrected" figures. 

2. The reader wanted to know a) the EPA's "acceptable" risk and by how much PAH exposure from fracking exceeded the EPA's cancer risk level. The EPA's' "acceptable risk level" is one additional cancer per one million people. Working backwards from limited data, the reader calculated that the EPA's own risk level is/was 25 times higher than the study's correct risk level of 0.04 in a million or one in 25 million.

3. NOTE: The CORRECTED value is 0.4% of what the fake/wrong/miscalculated number was. Again, the corrected PAH values are about 0.4% of those originally reported.

4. The reader noted that too many details were missing in the original document to determine how flawed the study design or how inconsequential the original study was. 

5. I replied to the reader, emphasizing what he also said: Premature publication of false conclusions may be impossible to erase with a less than sensational report of a recalculation that reduced a risk of cancer from compounds (PAHs), exposure to which "can be harmful at any level."  

The reader then went on to provide some observations:

1.  "Fracking," as in "Fracking Air Pollution Study," sounds like a pejorative.  As such,  it may well be serving conversations about this and another study, also retracted, by the same team, and that related to the BP Gulf Oil Spill. (See the last paragraph of this report.)

2.  A study title such as "Fracking Air Pollution Study" injects the bias that air pollution from fracking is established fact, when  establishing that fact ought to and may be part and parcel of the study itself.  

3.  The study was conducted in an area where gas well drilling and fracking was going on, but its data relates to proximity to "active" gas wells and not specifically to fracking which could have been in progress, completed or may not have taken place at all at the subject gas wells.

4.  For this article, "The researchers then recalculated the excess lifetime cancer risk level . . . at a variety of different exposures . . . [up to] 350 days per year for over 26 years."

"The researchers . . ."? ---My reading of the article leads me to believe the recalculations and corrected results reported here are by the same Kim Anderson, Oregon State University, and research team that did the original study.  So, it's not, as I initially presumed,  by an independent, disinterested 3rd party or peer review group.  Knowing who funded the study and, if EPA-funded, what roll if any the heading, "Fracking air pollution study,"  played in approval of a grant funding the study and its corrective is beyond suspicion.

". . . then recalculated . . ."?  The researchers had  used the wrong "ideal gas constant" figure in the original study.  It would appear that, instead of a complete do-over of the study, no re-evaluation for other study design flaws,  they used the same research data and just recalculated with the corrected "constant."  One would have to see the equation or calculations to know if the corrected figures which lowered the value for  concentrations of PAHs  within 528 ft. of an active well from 330 ng/ cubic meter to 1.3 ng/cubic meter might also have  so reduced the significance of "forensic" profiles of PAHs as to place the distinction between a natural gas source and a combustion source (smoking, vehicle exhaust, wood-burning stoves, gas escapes [in repairing, coupling,  connecting,  fueling equipment that is normal activity on any well site  but with no direct link to fracking itself],   natural gas heaters and furnaces---it was, after all, winter, or I would have included barbecue grills. --- Where was I?---Oh, yes.   Is the forensic evidence for a distinction between natural gas sources and combustion sources now within the margin of error or also reduced to statistical  irrelevance if not a negative correlation?   Note, the study's corrected PAH values are "on the same order of magnitude as PAH values at rural sites far from natural gas production . . . ."   Isn't that amazing?  

". . . the EXCESS  lifetime cancer risk level . . ."? (Caps, my own)   In excess of what?  Corrected, it's not just "within" or "well within the EPA's most conservative acceptable risk level of 1 cancer in a million"  but, at 1 cancer in 25 million, it begs for the question, "What difference, at this point, does it make?"  There is a higher probability that the study was funded by a grant through the EPA and to which, unbeknownst to me, I contributed an amount equal to all the annual compound interest on the balance in my checking account.  

5. The study took place in winter.  What seasonal or geographical factors (hill or hollow, open grassland or woodland, sleet or snow)  could skew passive air sampler measurements of PAHs, absorbed over several weeks by polyethylene strips ? 

  

My next logical step would be to read the actual initial and corrected study report.  But I can't find enough merit in either, from this article, to spend any more time on them.

That was the first note from the reader.

Then the second follow-up note from the same reader:

Matter resolved.  The spreadsheet used was complicated.  An honest mistake.  Not the first time.  Peer review didn't even catch it.  Published reports have been retracted by their respective journals.  Good mileage out of the erroneous "constant,"  before retraction.  Poof!  Gone! ---Like some now infamous e-mails.  Now, how will I learn what the original values were that were about , 99.6% higher than the corrected ones if I'm mathematically correct.

This is the link to "correction": http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2015/may/fracking-may-affect-air-quality-and-human-health-osu-study-finds.

And the reader continues with a third update. The whole study / retraction is more than fishy. One wonders who put the pressure on the authors to retract the erroneous study. I talked about that in the original post. This is the third note from the same reader concerning this story:

Would you know this was the correction of a retracted, earlier study, but for the OSU announcement and link to this and the BP Gulf oil spill retractions of published articles by the same research leader and her team?

".  .  . and CARCINOGENIC POTENCY of PAH mixtures were highest when samplers were closest to active wells."

 Note the very next sentence:

"PAH levels closest to natural gas activity were comparable to levels previously reported in rural areas in winter." 

[The Deirdere Lockwood article, reporting on the retraction, reads, " on the same order of magnitude as PAH values at rural sites far from natural gas production and . . . ."  Given three proximity ranges for the study, from within 528 ft. to 3 mi. from an active well, it would be reasonable to assume "in rural areas" and "far from natural gas production" to thus mean over 3 miles from an active well.  I haven't downloaded the full report and probably won't.]

Do you recognize that both above-quoted statements describe samples in the same proximity and study parameters?   Both in the same winter period, quite possibly even the same sampling which saw a PAH value of 330 retracted and revised to 1.2 ng/m3.

According to this revised abstract, a risk level of 0.04 in a million "is below the [EPA's] acceptable risk level."

How much is 0.04  in a million below 1 in a million? --- Did my math hold up?  Isn't it 25 times lower and therefore 1 in 25,000,000? 

Again: this is the replacement for a retracted study report?  http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.est.6b02762.

To the best of my knowledge, my editing did not change any of the reader's observations or conclusions. If there are errors in anything posted above, they are mine, not the reader's. In a long note like this, there will be typographical and factual errors. Opinions are mixed with facts. If this information is important to you, check out the links. Do not quote me on this stuff; I am posting this for the archival importance and to help me better understand the Bakken. 

Original Post

 

From a reader. Thank you, very much.

From Chemical & Engineering News:

Because of calculation errors, researchers have retracted a 2015 study showing that airborne pollutants known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) near fracking sites in Ohio posed elevated cancer risk to area residents and workers.

In a new paper, the team reports corrected PAH values that are about 0.4% of those originally reported. In contrast to the original study’s conclusions, the researchers estimate that exposure to these PAH levels does not exceed the Environmental Protection Agency’s acceptable risk levels for cancer.

If that is not a typo, read that again: PAH values that are about 0.4% of those originally reported. They didn't say PAH values were about 0.4%. They said recalculating the "true" values are about 0.4% of what they originally posted. Do you know how far off that is? It's hard to believe that a peer-reviewed article would be off by that much.

Zeropointfourpercent of one dollar, for example, is ... well, let's do this: zeropointfourpercent of $10 is 4 pennies. [If I am wrong, I will retract it and re-submit.] When riding my bike, I will stop for a nickel on the ground, but I don't always stop for a penny.

I guess the EPA will now go back in and change the "acceptable exposure to PAH" to fit the "corrected" data.

Oh, yes, here it is already. An expert on PAH says: "the new study shows elevated PAHs near fracking sites—and adds that the compounds can be harmful at any level. “The EPA standards are set at levels that are achievable in our modern (and contaminated) world, and should not be used to imply that any amount is without some danger,” he says. “But it is reassuring that the measured levels do not exceed EPA standards.”

In other words, after lunch, the expert needs to get on the horn, notify the EPA, and get the ball rolling. But, first, lunch.

If nothing else, the original researcher -- responsible for the miscalculations -- got two of his/her studies published. Publish or perish, as they say.

**************************************

The Lost Dinosaurs of Egypt

William Nothdurft with Josh Smith

c. 2002

DD: 567.909 NOT  

For the first part of this "story," go to this link. This morning I was watching Sophia while her mother was doing some errands downtown. After reading a book, etc., she wanted to watch Elmo (Sesame Street). Of course, I have no idea where I might find Sesame Street but we did find Dinosaur Train on PBR which was just as good. Perhaps better. After every 7 minutes or so of cartoon dinosaurs, a real paleontologist comes on -- "Dr Scott" I think he called himself -- and speaks in a grown-up voice with grown-up information about dinosaurs. It is really quite clever.

One of Dr Scott's segments this morning was on flowering plants, and he said exactly what I had read in Nothdurft's book yesterday but did not take time to note.

He noted that stegosaurus never saw a flowering plant. Wow. I never knew.

Stegosaurus is found in rocks in the late Jurassic period, between 155 and 150 million years ago, the western US and Portugal, according to some sources, and flowing plants did not arrive until the Cretaceous period.

Flowering plants were first seen about 140 million years ago:

Flowering plants (angiosperms) evolved about 140 million yeasr ago, during the late Jurassic period, and quickly spread. They dramatically changed the Earth's landscapes, quickly taking over most of the ecological niches. These fast-growing, adaptable plants also gave rise to a HUGE boom in the dinosaur world.

Most of the dinosaurs that have been found date from the late Cretaceous period, when flowering plants were supplying plant-eating dinosaurs (like hadrosaurs) with plentiful and nutritious food. Some Mesozoic Era angiosperms included magnolias, laurel, barberry, early sycamores, and palms. Grasses may have evolved later. Cretaceous vegetation was increasing in density and species diversity as the quick-to-adapt flowering plants radiated throughout the world. 

Let's see what Nothdurft said:

• epeiric seas: different from oceans in a number of ways; narrower; less space for wind to build up waves; not much of a tidal wave; gradual floor gradient; very placid waters; quiet environment for sediments to be deposited century after century
• on land: major changes also occurring; up until the Cretaceous, plant life was surprisingly limited and monotonous
• at the beginning of the Cretaceous: grasses did not exist; there were no flowering plants
• Mesozoic Era prior to the Cretaceous: limited primarily to conifer, ginkgo trees; cycads, horsetails, and ferns. Lots of ferns.
• The way the herbivores would have decimated the flora, opened up niches for the first-flowering plants, the angiosperms
• Advantages of angiosperms: weedy; they grow fast; bounce back quickly after being grazed
• The angiosperms made it possible for a large and diverse group of herbivores -- the ornithopods -- to proliferate -- especially in North America and China
• Ornithopods: the "cattle of the Cretaceous"
• By the late Cretaceous, sauropods began to decline in some parts of the world but remained dominant in Africa; the sauropod discovery by the Bahariya Dinosaur Project was a prime example

The problem: in this area during the time of the Cretaceous, there were three huge meat-eating dinosaurs, and two large plant-eating dinosaurs -- but a) what were the herbivores eating; and, b) where was the missing beach sand?

If I have time, I will come back to that on another day.

By the way, another word: epeiric seas -- inland seas. 

Inland seas, also called epeiric or epicontinental seas, are shallow seas over part of a continent. They usually happen with marine transgressions, when the sea overtops the land.

This is a photo of a graphic at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History, the new dinosaur wing, which we visited a few years ago. It's of the western hemisphere. Note that most of Montana and western North Dakota are smack dab under the "western interior seaway."

By the way, it's easy to keep the non-flowering plants / flowering plants scientific names separate. They are gymnosperms and angiosperms. You only have to remember one. Gymnosperms come from the same Greek word that becomes gymnasiums. Greek gymnasiums where places where naked men wrestled. Gymno is Greek for naked. So gymno-plants are naked plants, or non-flowering plants. At least that's how I keep angiosperms and gymnosperms straight.