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The Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project (SWPA-EHP) has been conducting a "pretty aggressive" indoor air monitoring project since 2011 in the midst of Pennsylvania's gas drilling boom, particularly near unconventional wells that employed hydraulic fracturing, project director Reina Ripple said in a webinar hosted by the Natural Resources Defense Council.
The project has documented sudden increases in particulate matter within homes, she said.
"These are really significant spikes in particulate matter, and a lot of the time they do happen at night," Ripple said.
The spikes may last three to four hours, and they cannot be explained by typical household activities like cooking, Ripple said.
The spikes occur at night, she believes, because of stable atmospheric conditions that hold particulate matter low to the ground instead of dispersing it.
"The air masses at night tend to be pretty stable, so you've got a lot of people who are living not even downwind from these sites necessarily, but downslope."
Comment: It's gotta be said: If your exorcist has been working on you for three years, it's time to find a better 'exorcist'!