Special Project: Design of a Cumulative Impact Assessment for an Oil & Gas Community in the United States

What are we doing? HEI Energy staff, with oversight from a dedicated special project Panel, the Energy Research Committee, and external individuals with diverse expertise, will spearhead the design of a Cumulative Impact Assessment for a representative oil and gas community in the United States. This design will identify and prioritize impacts that are most important for understanding and addressing the health and well-being of individuals and communities, as well as help to advance equity by including the range of impacts experienced by various subpopulations in a community. While the design will focus on the extraction and production phases of oil and gas development, it will draw on the experience and knowledge across the broader landscape of oil and gas communities, including ‘fenceline’ communities near other phases of oil and gas infrastructure and supply chains.

Why are we doing this? To support decisions about how best to ensure the protection of public health. The assessment of cumulative impacts has a long history within the field of environmental impact assessment [since the enactment of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) in 1970], and is of strong interest across federal, state, and municipal government, academic researchers, and local communities. Cumulative impacts research that focuses on the totality of exposures (both beneficial and adverse) from such stressors on health and well-being is needed in order to address the overlapping environmental and social burdens experienced by many communities, including historically marginalized communities. Cumulative Impact Assessment has also recently been highlighted as a priority for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in its efforts to better serve these communities. However, there is no standardized guidance or design for assessing the cumulative impacts of chemical and non-chemical stressors on health. Many templates or guidance documents are agency, regulation, or sector specific. Within the context of unconventional oil and gas (UOGD) development research, HEI Energy is well-positioned to synthesize what is already known from HEI Energy’s currently funded research and what has been learned about the adverse and beneficial impacts on communities over the past two decades to produce a Cumulative Impact Assessment design for a representative oil and gas community in the United States. Such a design could also serve as a model for similar analyses in other communities affected by the energy transition (e.g., hydrogen hub communities).

Who might use it? This design may help inform policy-making and decision-makers at various levels. Some examples: Decisions subject to NEPA and other state specific regulations, both those already implemented and still in development, as well as those in industry. Such a design will also be useful more broadly to researchers, community groups, and other environmental and public health organizations who are conducting cumulative impact assessments or engaged in cumulative impacts research.

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Energy & Health Special Panel on Cumulative Impact Assessment

Chair, Julia Haggerty, Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University (MSU) Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University (MSU)

Dr. Haggerty is an Associate Professor of Geography in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University (MSU), where she holds a joint appointment in the Montana Institute on Ecosystems. She received her BA from Colorado College in liberal arts and her PhD from the University of Colorado in history. An award-winning teacher, Dr. Haggerty teaches courses in human, economic, and energy resource geography at MSU. She also leads the Resources and Communities Research Group in studying the ways rural communities respond to shifting economic and policy trajectories, especially as they involve natural resources. Dr. Haggerty has expertise in diverse rural geographies, including those shaped by energy development, extractive industries, ranching and agriculture, and amenity development and conservation. Partnerships and collaboration with diverse stakeholders are central to her approach.

Prior to joining MSU, Dr. Haggerty was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Otago in New Zealand (2005–2007) and a policy analyst with Headwaters Economics in Bozeman, Montana (2008–2013). She speaks frequently to public audiences about her research and has served on a number of boards and advisory committees from local to international scales.
 

Nicole Deziel, Department of Environmental Health Sciences at Yale School of Public Health
Dr. Deziel is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the Yale School of Public Health, and Co-Director of the Yale Center for Perinatal, Pediatric and Environmental Epidemiology (CPPEE). She obtained a Master’s of Industrial Hygiene and Doctorate in Environmental Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Her research is focused on applying statistical models, biomonitoring techniques, and environmental measurements to provide comprehensive and quantitative assessments of exposure to traditional and emerging environmental contaminants in population-based studies. Her research uses a combination of large, administrative datasets and detailed community-focused studies to advance understanding of environmental exposures to chemicals, particularly carcinogens and endocrine disruptors. This research also serves to illuminate exposure mechanisms underlying associations between environmental chemicals and disease, thereby informing more effective policies to reduce exposures and protect public health. Dr. Deziel's contributions have been directed at two main areas: (1) exposure and human health impacts of unconventional oil and gas development (“hydraulic fracturing”) and (2) residential exposure to chemicals in common consumer products (e.g., pesticides, flame retardants) and cancer risk (particularly thyroid cancer). In addition, she consider disproportionate burdens of exposures (“environmental justice”) and the combination of environmental and social stressors in the context of her work.

 

Stephanie Malin, Department of Sociology at Colorado State University (CSU)
Dr. Malin is an environmental sociologist specializing in the community impacts of extraction and energy production. Her main interests include environmental justice, environmental health, social movements, and the social and ecological effects of market-based economies. She also examines communities building more distributive and regenerative systems. Stephanie serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at Colorado State University, and she is an adjunct Associate Professor with the Colorado School of Public Health. Stephanie co-founded and co-directs the Center for Environmental Justice at CSU. She is an award-winning teacher of courses on environmental justice, water and society, and environmental sociology. Stephanie is the author of two books, Building Something Better: Environmental Crises and the Promise of Community Change (2022) with Meghan Elizabeth Kallman, and The Price of Nuclear Power: Uranium Communities and Environmental Justice (2015). She has published her research in journals such as Social Problems, Social Forces, Environmental Politics, Journal of Rural Studies, and Society and Natural Resources. Stephanie conducts public sociology and engaged scholarship, and her work can additionally be found in news outlets like The Conversation and High Country News’ Writers on the Range. Stephanie's work has been supported by grants from the Department of Energy, National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences (part of National Institutes of Health), the American Sociological Association, the Colorado Department of Public Health & Environment, the Rural Sociological Society’s Early Career Award, and the Colorado Water Center. Stephanie has enjoyed serving in elected leadership positions for the American Sociological Association’s Section on Environmental Sociology and the International Association for Society and Natural Resources. She completed a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship at Brown University, working with Dr. Phil Brown and his Contested Illnesses Research Group, after earning her Ph.D. in Sociology from Utah State University.

Daniel Rossi-Keen, RiverWise
Dr. Rossi-Keen is the Executive Director of RiverWise. RiverWise exists to organize community power and voice so that residents can assert agency over the future of Beaver County, Pennsylvania. Daniel has served on the boards of more than thirty nonprofit and civic organizations, teaches regularly at colleges and universities around the region, and writes a bi-weekly column entitled “Community Matters” for the Beaver County Times. Daniel holds a PhD in Rhetoric and Philosophy of Communication from Ohio University, an M.A. in Rhetoric and Culture from Ohio University, an M.A. in Philosophy from Ohio University, a Graduate Certificate in Women’s Studies from Ohio University, an M.A. in Theological Studies from Reformed Theological Seminary, and a B.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies from Grove City College. Daniel lives in Aliquippa with his wife and four children, who daily motivate him to work toward more vibrant communities throughout Beaver County.