I recently mentioned that the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), part of the CDC, is conducting field work to assess health risks to oil and gas workers. It turns out that the NIOSH investigation has uncovered appalling health risks for workers involved in fracking operations being exposed to silica dust. The dust arises from the sand used as proppant in fracking. My NRDC colleague James Meinert has the full details in his recent blog post -- but before you click on the link to his post, check out the photos below from silica dust infiltrating the air at fracking operations in Wetzel County, West Virginia (photos thanks to the Wetzel County Action Group):
Photo used with permission, credit Bill Hughes