How a team of journalists reported on toxic gas leaking from Texas oil wells

In a collaborative investigation between the Houston Chronicle and The Examination, journalists Will Evans, Caroline Ghisolfi and Amanda Drane reported on the health risks of leaking hydrogen sulfide from oil wells in West Texas.

Regulators have done little to protect the thousands of Texans who live close to oil and gas wells from harmful levels of hydrogen sulfide (H2S). The joint investigation looks at the health threat of H2S and how residents in the Permian Basin deal with its effects. At low concentrations, H2S has a telltale rotten-egg smell that can cause headaches, eye irritation, nausea and fatigue. At high concentrations, it can cause you to lose your sense of smell, and can lead to loss of consciousness and death.

The investigation has captured the attention of legislators and environmental and health advocates calling for protections for families and schools located near oil wells.

Their reporting can be read for free via The Examination:

• Oil companies leak toxic gas across Texas - making local residents sick
• Is leaking hydrogen sulfide a risk to Texans living near oil wells?
• Texas lawmakers urge better regulation of toxic gas

In this "How I Did It," journalists Evans, Ghisolfi and Drane discuss their reporting approach to their hydrogen sulfide investigations in West Texas.

The following conversation has been edited for brevity and clarity.

What sparked your interest in the leaking H2S story? How did you hear about it?

The Examination was prompted to look at this by freelance reporter Tom Brown, who was investigating oil wells in Texas operating without the required H2S certification. We called up a retired state official who patrolled the oil fields, who said he saw facilities leaking the gas into residential neighborhoods, near schools and families, and that he didn't have the tools to stop it. That led us to look into it further, and partner with the Houston Chronicle.

What was your approach for gathering data and finding sources for these stories?

We used complaint data from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to search for H2S-related complaints and then request the investigation files. This helped us identify patterns and problem areas and find people who were affected directly. We used data sets from the Texas Railroad Commission, which oversees the oil industry, to map H2S hot spots. We used student data by the Texas Education Agency and U.S. Census population estimates by NASA to estimate how many people live nearby.

How did you approach connecting the data to stories and people on the ground?

In the state records, we zeroed in on instances where residents complained repeatedly about suffering health effects from H2S leaking from oil facilities near their homes. We called and visited people in the immediate area to hear their personal experiences. In the case of one family, we brought an H2S monitor to measure the levels ourselves.

What sort of illnesses or effects did you see in people who were exposed to H2S?

Headaches and nausea were the most common, plus eye and nose irritation, coughing, asthma and rashes.

What should health care reporters who are less familiar with H2S and oil well leaks know?

Some oilfields have high levels of H2S, while others don't. And H2S is a problem in other industries too. It can affect workers and communities around wastewater treatment plants, paper mills, landfills, refineries, and manure pits.

What sort of regulation needs to be in place to protect residents?

That's a matter of debate. There are no federal air quality standards for H2S - advocacy groups have been pushing for the EPA to regulate it for decades. In Texas, some lawmakers have called for stricter enforcement and more monitoring. Proposals include banning the release of H2S near population centers and requiring repeat offenders to upgrade their facilities.

What resources did you find the most helpful in your reporting (especially when you were starting)?

A review of scientific research on low-level H2S exposure, by University of Michigan Prof. Stuart Batterman, and a 1997 Houston Chronicle series on H2S by Jim Morris.

What potential angles do you think need to be explored on this topic?

There are H2S hot spots around the country (and the world) and reporters could use similar methods to investigate the problem locally. One of the first things they could do is determine which local agencies would receive complaints about H2S exposure and request those records.