I noticed that one of the OSHA drug panel tests for BTEX actually screen for phenol exposure. How did I come to know this…why because when I had my son BTEX tested, he failed (twice) for a Vanillyl Mandelic Acid (VMA see picture) which could be a biomarker for an adrenal tumor which can stem from endocrine disruption …yes we live two blocks from a Chesapeake padsite-go figure.

I’ll never forget the phone call last May in 2013 from my son’s pediatrician telling me that the adrenal tumor test needed to be repeated to rule out a false positive. He said that neuroblastomas can be a bad, bad, bad brain tumor like a glandular pheochromocytoma.

Even after still failing the second test, it was decided not to further test my son and I could only deal with one cancer in my immediate family at a time… you see my husband was diagnosed in March, and was just starting his chemo.

Back in January (they fracked and flowed back in December of 2012) my husband’s lymph nodes were swelling at the same time the rashes were appearing on my teen.  By January month end, we had at least two days of odor events when they were pulling up the equipment….the smell came into my home and my mother-in-law got ill with  cold flu-like symptons just like an employee near the drill site did.

So that was an extended/for the record intro in blogging about why I knew about phenol blood testing……..now for the story on how much poison we inject into our mother earth here in TexASS.

Texas Sharon blogged back in 2008 that Peggy Heinkel-Wolfe, a local fearless reporter, wrote…”Texas has nearly 78,000 injection wells, including about 50,000 of the nation’s 144,000 Class II wells used for “exempt” oil and gas wastewater.”

So it was no surprise to me that the ATSDR reported on the following link  http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp115-c6.pdf on Table 6-1 called “Releases to the Environment from Facilities that Produce, Process, or Use Phenol” that in 2005 Texas contributed 83% (1.2 million pounds per year) of the United State’s Phenol released via Class II Underground Injection Wells. 

So if this is the 2005 figure, read on to figure out how much we dispose by now. 

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/03/29/disposal-wells-fracking-waste-stir-water-concerns/ reported…“The amount of wastewater being disposed of in Texas wells has skyrocketed with the spread of fracking, to nearly 3.5 billion barrels in 2011 from 46 million barrels in 2005, according to data from the Railroad Commission of Texas, the state’s oil and gas regulator. On average, companies in Texas dispose of 290 million barrels of wastewater — equivalent to about 18,500 Olympic-size swimming pools — each month.”

You do the math with me…..

ATSDR says in 2005 that 1,225,500 ppy (pounds per year) of phenol was injected in TX.

RRC says in 2005 that 46 million barrels of waste water was generated that had to be injected.  That means for every 38 barrels of injection waste, that one pound of Phenol (a major metabolite of Benzene) was generated. Keep in mind that one teaspoon of Benzene contaminates about 261,000 gallons of water…