One of those studies, published in Environmental Research Letters and titled, “Just fracking: a distributive environmental justice analysis of unconventional gas development in Pennsylvania, USA,” concludes that “the income distribution of the population nearer to shale gas wells has not been transformed since shale gas development.”

The other, a report released by Environmental Integrity Project titled, “Greenhouse Gases from a Growing Petrochemical Industry,” examines the post-fracking supply chain and concludes that the petrochemical industry’s planned construction and expansion projects announced in 2015 alone are the “pollution equivalent to the emissions from 19 coal-fired power plants.”

Not Quite “Shaleionaires”

Two academics from outside of the U.S. and employed by the United Kingdom’s Newcastle University published the fracking environmental justice report. Lead author Emily Clough serves as a political science lecturer at Newcastle, while co-author Derek Bell serves as a professor of environmental political theory.

Both of them undertook an effort, as they write in the study’s introduction, to examine “income distribution and level of education in addition to race and poverty” and how these juxtaposed communities fared both “before and after shale gas development.” As it turns out, if you are poor and live in close proximity to a Marcellus Shale basin oil or gas well, you will receive some economic benefit — but not a very big one.

“In the 2009–2013 data, we found that the percentage of those living below the poverty threshold was slightly lower in areas close to unconventional wells than in areas further away,” they wrote. “This difference is small but statistically significant.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…