Is there fracking near that house?
Here’s how to actually find out.
Pennsylvania sits on the Marcellus Shale. If your buyers are looking outside city limits — Washington, Westmoreland, Butler, or Allegheny County’s outer boroughs — this question isn’t hypothetical. Here’s the honest guide, with every tool they need to check a specific address.
|
1.5M
Pennsylvanians within ½ mile of an active well
|
187K
Drilled oil & gas wells in Pennsylvania (total)
|
500ft
State-minimum setback from homes — current PA law
|
Your buyers are asking a fair question. They found a house they like — maybe it’s in Peters Township, or Elizabeth Township, or somewhere in the Alle-Kiski Valley — and they want to know what’s in the ground around it. Not a vague reassurance. An actual answer.
Pennsylvania sits on the Marcellus Shale, one of the largest natural gas deposits in the country. That means fracking — hydraulic fracturing — is a real part of life here in ways it isn’t in most states. The state’s setback law requires horizontally drilled well pads to sit at least 500 feet from the nearest occupied building. Five hundred feet is roughly one and a half football fields. Whether that’s enough is actively debated. It’s the law as it currently stands.
If you’re buying outside Pittsburgh’s city limits — especially in Washington, Westmoreland, Butler, or Allegheny County’s outer municipalities — this is worth knowing before you close.
The official government sources
The independent tools
How close is “too close”?
Pennsylvania requires horizontally drilled well pads to sit at least 500 feet from the nearest occupied building. A peer-reviewed study by the Southwest Pennsylvania Environmental Health Project — a panel of 18 experts including healthcare providers, researchers, and public health practitioners — recommended the setback be more than doubled. Here’s what those distances actually look like.
What buyers are already googling
Better to address this directly, because they will find it. Here’s what the peer-reviewed literature shows on proximity to active wells.
| Childhood lymphoma (≤1 mile of well) | 5×–7× elevated risk |
| Childhood leukemia (≤1.2 miles of well) | 2×–3× elevated risk |
| Asthma attacks (near active wells) | 4×–5× higher rate |
A joint study by the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the University of Pittsburgh found a 5-to-7-fold elevated risk of childhood lymphoma among children living within one mile of a well. Yale School of Public Health found children within roughly 1.2 miles were two to three times more likely to develop leukemia, and noted that existing setback distances are “insufficiently protective of children’s health.” Separate studies found asthma attack rates four to five times higher in people with asthma who live near active wells — even after drilling has ended and production is ongoing.
These studies exist. Buyers with families are going to find them. Better to hand them the tools and the context than to act like the question has a simple answer either way.
What to actually ask once you know what’s nearby
Western PA by drilling activity
Washington County is the most heavily drilled county in Pennsylvania. If you’re working with buyers in Peters Township, Cecil Township, or anywhere along the I-79 corridor south of the city, fracking proximity is part of the conversation — not a hypothetical. Allegheny County itself has been described as “an island in a sea of gas wells,” with industry pressure increasing as pipelines expand into more suburban areas.
How to use this in a real conversation
You don’t need to take a position on fracking to be useful here. You need to be the agent who actually knows where to look.
When a buyer raises the question, pull up the DEP map and show them how to search the address. Tell them which county they’re in, whether the municipality has local ordinances, and whether any active unconventional wells are visible within a reasonable radius.
Then let them decide what weight to put on it. Some buyers will see a well three miles away and not care. Some will see one a mile out and want to walk. Both responses are reasonable. Your job is to make sure they’re making that call with real information — not anxiety or false reassurance.
“Is there fracking near this house?” is a due diligence question — same drawer as checking the flood map or understanding the HOA. The data is public. The DEP built a map specifically so people can look it up. Use it.
Pennsylvania has the data.
Most buyers just don’t know where to find it.
If you have questions about buying in the Pittsburgh area and want to think through a specific property or neighborhood, I’m happy to talk through it.