By: Vanessa Lynch, Pennsylvania Field Organizer, Moms Clean Air Force
Date: June 30, 2025
About: Support of a strong and durable methane state plan
To: Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
My name is Vanessa Lynch and I am the Pennsylvania Campaign Coordinator for Moms Clean Air Force, representing over 100,000 Pennsylvania caregivers united against air pollution to equitably protect our children’s health. I support the adoption of a strong and durable methane state plan.
Durability is defined as uninterrupted or lasting existence. As we celebrate the 5th anniversary of then Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s 43rd Grand Jury, which found Pennsylvania failed to protect families from fracking, it’s clear the time to act on oil and gas air pollution is now. The methane state plan is a tangible opportunity to right past failures, creating real change and strong protections, decreasing air pollution in communities that have been inundated by fracking. The most important part of creating lasting change for frontline families? Durability.
I live in Allegheny County with my husband and two children. A well pad has been fracked in a medium density residential area of my local township. The well pad is located near homes, a daycare center, an assisted living facility, and a park where my children spent many of their childhood days playing in the stream and participating in recreational sports. Oil and gas air pollution isn’t a theoretical threat to my family. It is a daily reality of our lives.
According to our partners at Fractracker, as of 2022, over 100,000 children under the age of 18 live near a fracked well in Pennsylvania. A 2022 study from the Yale School of Public Health found Pennsylvania children between the ages of 2 and 7 were 2-3 times more likely to develop acute lymphoblastic leukemia if they lived near an unconventional or fracked well. A subsequent 2023 study from the University of Pittsburgh found further associations between proximity to oil and gas infrastructure and childhood lymphoma rates. Air pollution from the oil and gas industry has been shown to cause adverse birth outcomes, respiratory diseases, asthma attacks, reproductive problems, and neurological problems as well.
Not only does oil and gas air pollution put the health of Pennsylvania families at risk, but it also means more methane pollution, which is accelerating climate change, will be released into our air. Pennsylvania consistently has the highest number of cases of Lyme disease in the nation, a trend we are seeing as a result of climate change due to warmer winters and longer summers that increase the tick population.
Families throughout Pennsylvania are also dealing with the crippling impacts of increasingly powerful and frequent storms amplified by climate change. Flooding and extreme storms are pounding our neighborhoods, killing residents, damaging homes and causing lengthy power outages which are hard on families.
The cumulative impacts of oil and gas air pollution, public health costs, and climate change related weather impacts make it clear Pennsylvania must go further to address climate-warming methane pollution.
I am thankful Governor Shapiro has identified the methane state plan as important to his administration. As a leader who intimately knows the difficulties families on the frontline of the oil and gas industry face, Governor Shapiro must embrace ambitious and durable action on the methane state plan and its safeguards. As a mother who lives with oil and gas wells in my community, my family is depending on the Governor to ensure these protections last. Durability is non-negotiable.