pennsylvania
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As Trump champions LNG exports, Pennsylvania activists fight proposed Delaware River terminal
A proposed $7 billion liquefied natural gas terminal near Chester and Eddystone has sparked fierce local opposition over explosion risks and added pollution in long-burdened communities, even as the Trump administration accelerates LNG exports and rolls back environmental rules.
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Shell may sell $14 billion plastic plant in Pennsylvania after record tax deal fails to deliver
Shell is exploring a sale of its massive plastics facility in western Pennsylvania, built with a $1.65 billion state tax break, as the company shifts away from petrochemicals and toward its core fossil fuel operations.
In short:
- Shell’s ethane cracker plant in Beaver County opened in 2022 after 13 years of planning and construction, built with one of the largest tax incentives in Pennsylvania history. The company now says it may sell the site.
- The plant has faced public complaints over pollution, racked up 80 malfunction reports, and failed to deliver the thousands of permanent jobs state officials once promised. Only 500 people now work there.
- Financial analysts say Shell’s isolated location, changing market conditions, and a global oversupply of polyethylene contributed to the company’s decision to exit, even as its tax break remains in place.
Key quote:
“There’s simply no way to look at economic performance and say, ‘Beaver County got this petrochemical plant and it flourished.’”
— Eric de Place, research fellow at the Ohio River Valley Institute
Why this matters:
State and local governments often offer lucrative tax breaks to lure industrial projects, promising jobs and long-term economic growth. But the outcome in Beaver County raises sharp questions about the public return on these investments, especially when the project is built around fossil fuel infrastructure and plastic production. The Shell plant, designed to convert fracked ethane into single-use plastics, has become a flashpoint for concerns about air pollution, environmental health, and the future of petrochemicals in Appalachia. As global markets shift and demand fluctuates, local communities are left with the costs — financially, environmentally, and in terms of public trust.
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Coal plant closure led to major drop in kids’ asthma in Pennsylvania
After a coke plant near Pittsburgh shut down, children’s asthma emergencies dropped dramatically, giving scientists rare proof of what happens when dirty air disappears.
In short:
- After the Shenango Coke Works closed in 2016, ER visits for pediatric asthma in nearby Avalon dropped 40%, and respiratory-related visits overall fell 20%. The trend held steady over the years that followed.
- The coke-making process had spewed a noxious mix of benzene, sulfur dioxide, and fine particles into surrounding neighborhoods. Once the pollution source disappeared, so did many of the health problems — especially in kids.
- Researchers call the closure a “natural experiment” that provides unusually strong evidence linking fossil fuel pollution to real-time health harms, including new asthma cases in children.
Key quote:
“They’ve shown that the population didn’t change that much. The makeup of the population didn’t change. The only thing that changed was the pollution exposure.”
— Dr. Deborah Gentile, pediatric physician who has studied pediatric asthma near the still-operating Clairton Coke Works, located 20 miles from Shenango
Why this matters:
When the smokestacks went quiet at Shenango Coke Works, it sparked a stunning health transformation and an opportunity that gave science the kind of before-and-after data usually impossible to get outside a lab. When the pollution stopped, so did the damage. Fossil fuel pollution is a health crisis, especially for kids with growing lungs and zero political power.
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Community group presses Pennsylvania to post faster alerts on Shell plastics plant emissions in Beaver County
A Beaver County watchdog says Pennsylvania regulators are leaving residents in the dark by failing to quickly disclose six high-priority air violations recorded this year at Shell’s ethane-cracking plastics plant.
In short:
- The Shell Polymers facility in Potter Township, the state’s first ethane cracker, converts Marcellus Shale gas into polyethylene and has faced neighborhood criticism since it opened in 2022.
- Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community counts nearly 50 notices of violation overall and six federal “high-priority” air infractions in 2025 — already exceeding last year’s total — yet Shell has not been fined since a May 2023 $5 million settlement.
- The group says Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection posts violation documents too slowly and wants real-time alerts; the agency replies that it shares records as a courtesy and is not legally bound to faster disclosure.
Key quote:
“Shell violated air pollution laws in a way that the federal government itself considers a ‘high priority’ but no one prioritized informing our communities.”
— Hilary Starcher-O’Toole, executive director, Beaver County Marcellus Awareness Community
Why this matters:
Ethane crackers heat a stream of natural gas liquids until the molecules split, spitting out ethylene that is turned into the plastic pellets that feed countless consumer goods. The process vents nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and greenhouse gases, pollutants tied to asthma, heart disease, and climate change. Beaver County already sits in the Ohio River Valley’s industrial corridor, where air quality routinely hits federal limits. Without timely public warnings, residents may not close windows, bring children indoors, or track flare-induced spikes that can drift miles downwind. The dispute also foreshadows the potential impacts of dozens of cracker projects proposed along the Gulf Coast and Appalachia as the shale boom pivots from fuel to plastics.
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Newsletter
Colorado kids with leukemia are more than twice as likely to live near dense oil and gas development
A recent study suggests that living near a higher density of oil and gas wells increases childhood cancer risk.
A recent study found that Colorado children who’d been diagnosed with Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia were more than twice as likely to live near dense oil and gas development, including both conventional and fracking wells, than healthy children throughout the state.
Oil and gas wells emit chemicals that have been linked to increased risk for this type of leukemia — the most common form of childhood cancer — including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, among others.
Previous research in Colorado and Pennsylvania, which are among the top 10 energy-producing states in the country, have also linked living near oil and gas wells with higher risk for childhood leukemia, but this is the first to assess whether the density of wells and the volume of oil and gas being produced leads to greater risk.
The new study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, looked at medical records for more than 3,000 children born in Colorado between 1992 and 2019. The researchers found that children who were diagnosed with leukemia between the ages of two and nine were more than twice as likely to live within five kilometers — about three miles — of dense oil and gas development compared to healthy children. The study also found that Children who’d been diagnosed with leukemia during this time period were between 1.4 and 2.64 times more likely to live within 13 kilometers (about eight miles) of dense oil and gas development.
“Considering the density of oil and gas development is really important,” Lisa McKenzie, lead author of the study and associate professor of environmental and occupational health at the Colorado School of Public Health, told EHN. “If you were in the unusual situation of having just one oil and gas well within a kilometer of your home, that might not have increased your child’s risk for leukemia. However, we found that if you had lots and lots of wells within 13 kilometers [about eight miles] of your home, that did increase the risk for childhood leukemia.”
The study included 451 children with leukemia and 2,706 healthy children, and considered the density of oil and gas development near their homes starting at the time their mothers conceived them through the time of their diagnosis (or a similar time frame for healthy children). The researchers assessed the density of oil and gas production by looking at the number of wells present, how close they were to a child’s home, the number of new wells being drilled, and how much oil and gas was being produced at various times within three, five, and 13 kilometers of their homes.
“Children living near the densest areas of oil and gas development had the highest risk increase,” McKenzie said, “but we also found that children with leukemia were much more likely to be living within three or five kilometers of any oil and gas wells than children without leukemia.”
The researchers controlled for other childhood cancer risk factors including other sources of pollution around the home, UV exposure, distance to the nearest highway, the mothers’ ages, and the child’s biological sex and birth weight.
“This study has numerous strengths,” Cassandra Clark, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota's Division of Pediatric Epidemiology and Clinical Research, told EHN. Clark, who was not involved in the study but co-authored a 2022 paper on childhood cancer risk and fracking in Pennsylvania that made similar findings, said this study’s strengths include using a larger sample size than previous research, controlling for other childhood cancer risks, and focusing on the age range where childhood leukemia incidence is highest.
“We have now seen three high-quality case-control studies documenting increased pediatric leukemia risk associated with proximity to oil and gas development, and the effects observed are relatively consistent across studies,” Clark said, adding that there’s now enough research on this for policymakers to “develop health-protective policies for oil and gas development.”
In 2020, Colorado legislators increased the state’s setback distances — the minimum distance between new fracking wells and homes, schools, hospitals, and businesses — from 500 feet from homes and 1,000 feet for high-occupancy buildings like schools, to 2,000 feet (a little more than half a kilometer) from all schools and homes. Those distances are among the most health-protective in the country.
In Pennsylvania, for example, the setback distance is 500 feet (about 0.15 kilometers) for any occupied building, but this can be waived by property owners, and some facilities operate within 300 feet of residential buildings. Public health experts have warned that these distances are not great enough to protect public health, but efforts to expand setback distances in the state have repeatedly been shot down by Pennsylvania lawmakers.
“Our research suggests that just increasing setback distances isn’t enough,” McKenzie said. “Current setback laws only consider where one new well is going. I would really encourage policymakers to consider the cumulative impacts of everything going on around homes or in areas where new oil and gas development is going to protect vulnerable populations like young children.”
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Newsletter
Trump administration orders Pennsylvania power plant to stay open amid claims of emergency demand
A half-century-old oil and gas power plant in Pennsylvania will remain online through the summer after a last-minute order from the Department of Energy reversed its planned shutdown.
In short:
- The Eddystone Generating Station near Philadelphia was slated to close for economic reasons, but the Department of Energy ordered it to continue operations, citing a national energy emergency declared by President Trump.
- The order follows a broader push by the Trump administration to extend fossil fuel power generation amid rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence data centers, while simultaneously blocking renewable energy expansion.
- Environmental groups argue the move is unjustified, as grid operator PJM had previously found the plant's closure would not threaten reliability, and they warn of higher costs and increased air pollution.
Key quote:
“Saying that you are going to keep a dirty power plant open during the summer means that you are directly contributing to more failed air-quality days. It’s going to exacerbate our failure to meet clean-air standards, and there are consequences of that for people’s health.”
— Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network
Why this matters:
Oil- and gas-fired power plants like Eddystone emit harmful pollutants linked to asthma, heart disease, and other health problems, particularly in urban areas already struggling with poor air quality. Keeping such plants online also perpetuates greenhouse gas emissions at a time when climate scientists stress the need to phase out fossil fuels. The decision to override a scheduled shutdown — based not on grid reliability but on a political directive — raises environmental justice concerns, particularly for nearby communities who bear the brunt of pollution. It also underscores the current shift in federal energy priorities away from renewables and toward fossil fuels, with potentially long-term impacts on public health and climate policy.
Learn more: Public support for renewable energy drops as partisan divides and fossil fuel interests grow
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Newsletter
Western Pennsylvania residents protest landfill plan over fracking waste fears
For years, residents of Grove City, Pennsylvania, have fought to stop the reopening of a nearby landfill that could accept radioactive waste from oil and gas drilling.
In short:
- The Tri-County Landfill in Grove City, closed since 1990, may reopen under new ownership, sparking fears it will accept fracking waste that can contain radioactive materials.
- Local group Citizens’ Environmental Association of the Slippery Rock Area (CEASRA) argues the landfill’s reactivation would threaten public health and nearby waterways, citing the presence of Technologically Enhanced Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (TENORM) and past environmental violations.
- Pennsylvania regulators approved the landfill’s permit after previously denying it, despite ongoing concerns about pollution and legal loopholes that exempt oil and gas waste from hazardous classification.
Key quote:
“We realized we didn’t only have a trash problem, but we had a radiation problem.”
— Beverly Graham, recording secretary, CEASRA
Why this matters:
Pennsylvania produces massive volumes of waste from oil and gas drilling — especially from fracking — which is often laced with radioactive isotopes like radium-226 and -228. These byproducts, known as TENORM, can accumulate in landfill leachate and wastewater, posing long-term environmental and health risks when released into waterways. Yet thanks to regulatory exemptions dating back decades, fracking waste is not legally classified as hazardous, despite containing substances that fit the scientific definition. That leaves communities vulnerable, especially when such waste is buried in municipal landfills not designed for radioactive material. As waste from the state’s booming gas industry looks for new disposal sites, the battle over the Tri-County Landfill may foreshadow similar conflicts across the region.
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