Sue Mickley
Environmental Protection Committee Chair – Northern Wayne Property Owners Alliance; MPH/HA – Yale University

Benzene is one of those chemicals we hear about often in the discussion over natural gas development. It is said to be leaking from compressor stations and polluting our air, by those opposed to the development of this clean burning resource. Realistically, not only have benzene levels been proven to have little or no connection to shale gas development but the effects have been widely exaggerated. As a health professional and mother, I feel the impacts of chemicals like benzene are something we should be educated on, so I took the time to do a little research into its risks and sources of emission.

Yesterday I was admiring our towering pine trees planted 60-100 years ago.  As I thought of the history of pines in Pennsylvania I remembered they were used to make turpentine and for tanning in the old days.  I wondered about the chemical composition of pine and how that relates to chemicals today, especially benzene.  That lead to an internet search that showed benzene is produced naturally by volcanoes, forest fires, and any incomplete combustion like cigarette smoke.  Benzene was first identified in the early 1800′s by Michael Faraday, a famous scientist of the time. He wondered about the composition of whale oil that was used in streetlamps.  He heated it and created a flammable gas he called bicarburet of hydrogen, later renamed benzene.

Benzene ranks as one of the top 20 chemicals in use today for production processes in the U.S.   20-30 million tons of benzene is produced annually in the U.S.  It is a super chemical and father of many other chemical compounds in many of the common products we use every day.

Based on stats from greenerindustry.org the global market grew from 4 million tons in 1960 to over 30 million tons in 2000.  Most of the benzene produced is from Western Europe, North America and Asia.

With further research I identified where benzene may be a part of my daily life.  

Read on to find out the many ways we are exposed to Benzene at http://eidmarcellus.org/marcellus-shale/all-in-a-typical-day-with-b...