What's In Your Water Wednesday: Benzene

What's In Your Water Wednesday is back from last week's hiatus with benzene!

BTEX is the acronym that stands for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene. These are all volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which means they readily evaporate into a gaseous state. This is bad news because they can easily contaminate water and air simultaneously. BTEX and other volatile organic compounds must be monitored very closely for this reason. 

The BTEX compounds are naturally occurring in crude oil and used in some fracking fluid mixtures, giving it a lot of opportunities to escape into the environment throughout the fracking process. We'll break the different compounds down over the next few weeks. Today we'll start with benzene.

Benzene is a colorless chemical that has a sweet odor. It can be man-made or naturally occurring. According to the National Library of Medicine website, it is one of the 20 most widely used chemicals in the United States. It is used to produce an array of everyday products as well as released from cigarette and forest fire smoke. Because it is a natural part of crude oil, it is also found in small amounts in gasoline, diesel, and plane fuel.

If you are exposed to high levels of benzene, you will experience a range of symptoms including dizziness, drowsiness, headache, and confusion. If you are exposed to benzene over a long period of time, the long-term health effects of benzene are extremely serious and affect the blood most dramatically. It can lead to:

• bone marrow malfunction
• anemia
• low white blood cell count
• damaged immune system
• leukemia

It is classified as a known human carcinogen and is regulated under the Safe Water Drinking Act and Clean Air Act.

If you would like to get a report about the fracking activity going on near your home, go to www.fractest.com to find out how you can get a homeowner report. The FracTest Platform Blog aims to educate homeowners about the potential contamination threats to their water supply from fracking processes. Thanks for reading and be sure to subscribe!