Name: Nearly 47m Americans face health risks from nearby fossil fuel sites
Uploaded: 2025-11-18T01:20:59.382Z
Duration: 3 min 16 s
Description: Researchers with Boston University have found that 46.6 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of fossil fuel infrastructure. So what does that mean for their health?

Researchers with Boston University have found that 46.6 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of fossil fuel infrastructure. So what does that mean for their health?

Boston

A recent study conducted by researchers at Boston University has found that approximately 46.6 million Americans, or about 14% of the U.S. population, live within a mile of fossil fuel infrastructure. These individuals face increased health risks due to pollutants released during the extraction, storage, transportation, and use of fossil fuels. 

The study also identified significant disparities in exposure, with minorities and urban residents more likely to live near such infrastructure. The researchers emphasized that many health impacts, especially from midstream facilities like storage and transportation, remain poorly understood and could persist for decades as new infrastructure is built.

Nearly 47m Americans face health risks from nearby fossil fuel sites

Science shows fossil fuels are bad for the environment, but a new study is focusing on how they could hurt humans. Fossil fuels release pollutants into the air when they're extracted and burned. Breathing in these pollutants has been proven to have a negative impact on human health. Researchers with Boston University found that 46.6 million people in the U.S. live within a mile of fossil fuel infrastructure, putting them at greater risk. That's about 14% of the population. One of the authors of that study, Jonathan Bunicor, joins us now. He's also an assistant professor at Boston University's School of Public Health and the Environmental Health Department. Thank you so much for being here to talk to us about your work. Your study found some inequities when it comes to exposure among minorities and in more urban areas. Walk us through those findings. Yeah, so what our study found was that there was about 46.6 million people in total, or about 14.1% of the U.S. population is near some piece of energy infrastructure. We broke things up into five different segments. There was end use, which is things like power plants, extraction, which is things like oil and gas wells and coal mines, and then storage facilities. There's transportation, which is a lot of infrastructure that's near pipelines, and then things like refineries and gas processing plants. And we mapped that out, looked at how many people and who lived next to these things, and did find substantial disparities all the way across the supply chain. How should this information be used to guide fossil fuel policy? Yeah, so I think a couple things are important to know. I guess first is that we know that these fossil fuel facilities, they have some health hazards associated with them, largely due to air pollution emissions and some other pathways. While we know these things exist, they are not very well characterized, and we really don't know a lot about a lot of these health impacts, especially on what's called midstream infrastructure. So this is the storage and transportation. There might be some big health impacts that we just don't know about and aren't putting into policies. And it's important to know that when we build new infrastructure, a lot of this stuff lasts for decades, so these health impacts are locked in for decades as well. And communities living near that have to deal with this for the lifetime of the facility. Are there any concrete examples that stand out to you from your research? Yeah, for me, the example that stands out the most and is what got us started on this path is the Aliso Canyon well blowout that happened close to 10 years ago at this point, where a lot of people had to be evacuated and there was an amount of methane that was emitted that was about equivalent to, if memory serves, over half a million cars driving for a year. But a lot of communities, or a lot of people in the communities nearby were experiencing nausea, vomiting, and that kind of thing. And we realized there's a lot more of these facilities. And just a few weeks ago, there was a study that came out showing that the communities near the facility, when this well blowout was happening, there was a increased rate of low birth weight. Jonathan Budencourt, thank you for your time. Thank you.

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