Nearly 47 million Americans at high risk of potential health hazards from fossil fuel infrastructure, study finds

Fossil fuels release pollutants into the air when extracted and burned, but there’s more to their production than massive oil rigs diving deep into Earth and smoky power plants. Those processes are examples of only the first and last—and generally most visible—moments in a fossil fuel’s five-stage journey.

Between the initial extraction site and the final power-generating facility, oil and gas are also refined to remove impurities, held in storage facilities, and transported from place to place. These mid-supply chain steps occur in a sprawling fossil fuel infrastructure network that spans the United States and is often hidden from plain sight.

A new study by Boston University researchers offers a first-time look at populations living within 1.6 km (roughly a mile) of fossil fuel infrastructure across all stages of the supply chain. Published in Environmental Research Letters, the study estimates that 46.6 million people in the contiguous US live within about a mile of at least one piece of fossil fuel infrastructure. This represents 14.1% of the population.

While a growing body of research confirms that communities residing near extraction and end-use facilities face a higher risk of adverse birth outcomes and asthma—and research on other health outcomes, including leukemia, is emerging—much less is known about the health effects of living near mid-supply chain infrastructure. Harmful pollutants such as volatile organic compounds have been detected near some of these facilities.

“This study helps us get a general size of the potential problem, and really starts the process of doing a better job of understanding exactly what the hazards are and how many people are potentially exposed,” said Jonathan Buonocore, the paper’s first author, an assistant professor of environmental health at BU’s School of Public Health (SPH), and core faculty at BU’s Institute for Global Sustainability (IGS). “Especially for these more obscure pieces of energy infrastructure, this is the first step to tracking what emissions and stressors those are imposing on the communities.”

Breaking down that 46.6 million figure, the team estimated how many people live near each type of infrastructure nationwide. Almost 21 million Americans live near end-use facilities, including power plants. More than 20 million are within a mile of extraction sites, like oil and gas wells.

Storage facilities—like peak shaving facilities, underground gas storage facilities, and petroleum product terminals—have more than 6 million nearby residents. Fewer people live near refining and transportation. Many Americans, about 9 million, are counted toward several of those totals, as their homes are in proximity to multiple types of infrastructure.

“There is reason to believe that there could be air pollution coming from each of these stages, from consistent pollution, gas leaks, or blowouts, when gas or oil flows from a well uncontrollably,” said Mary Willis, the study’s senior author, an assistant professor of epidemiology at SPH, and core faculty at IGS. “All of these stages can reasonably impact a range of population health outcomes, yet the basic information of who is even near the infrastructure components has not been examined to date.”

Identifying inequities in fossil fuel exposure

According to the study, infrastructure is not distributed evenly across the nation. Predominantly non-white groups are disproportionately exposed across all stages of the energy supply chain, a finding that aligns with previous research and indicates an environmental injustice.

Urbanites are also more exposed than their rural counterparts. Almost 90% of the population near end-use, transportation, refining, and storage infrastructure is found in urban areas.

Examining each infrastructure type helped the researchers reveal important trends that could guide policymaking. For instance, they found that a single piece of storage infrastructure has, on average, 2,900 residents within a mile, while a single piece of extraction infrastructure has an average of only 17 nearby inhabitants. This indicates that while there are more pieces of extraction infrastructure across the country, they are generally located in less populated spots. Pieces of storage infrastructure are less plentiful, but more likely to be found in dense urban areas.

“That means that if a local policymaker in an urban area were to take interest in reducing exposures, they may receive the most impact per piece of infrastructure if they focus on storage,” Buonocore said.

By identifying communities already hosting significant amounts of fossil fuel infrastructure, the researchers say their work can help guide more equitable siting of energy infrastructure in the future.

New results made possible by first-of-its-kind database

The publication marks the first study based on the Energy Infrastructure Exposure Intensity and Equity Indices (EI3) Database for Public Health, launched by Buonocore and Willis in spring 2024 at the Power & People Symposium. Additional co-authors on this article include Fintan Mooney, Erin Campbell, Brian Sousa, Breanna van Loenen, Patricia Fabian, and Amruta Nori-Sarma.

Until EI3’s launch, data on fossil fuel energy infrastructure was scattered across local, state, and national agencies and jurisdictions, sometimes behind paywalls or password protection. The team centralized all publicly available information for the first time into a single harmonized national tool. Their dataset is accessible on Harvard Dataverse. This grant also catalyzed the launch of the interdisciplinary SPH Energy and Health Lab, which Buonocore and Willis co-direct.

“The study really shows that there are big knowledge gaps across the supply chain, in terms of the hazards people are being exposed to, the consequent health impacts, and who is being exposed,” Buonocore said.

“With a lot of these different types of infrastructure, the hazards have not been fully characterized. Characterizing hazards and understanding who is most heavily exposed should be the first steps of understanding the possible health impacts. This research takes the first steps down that path.”

A clearer picture opens new directions for future research

While some US municipalities or states have set zoning regulations, in many regions, fossil fuel processes are permitted in any proximity to homes and schools. The team hopes their work will spur continued research to inform policymaking and promote community health. They note that future research may aim to better monitor air, water, noise, and light pollution near facilities, and expand on potential health impacts into novel datasets, such as Medicaid claims, or unique populations like pregnancy planners.

“We’re really the first group thinking about this as an integrated system. By quantifying all of these factors at once, we’re potentially able to, down the line, directly compare: what are the health effects of living near an extraction site, compared to living near a storage site?” Willis said. “Having that in one database is the first step to doing any health studies in the future on this integrated system.”