Pa. Health Agency Doesn't Keep Marcellus Database
Washington PA Observer Reporter
11 June 2011
Associated Press
ALLENTOWN - The Pennsylvania Department of Health said Friday that it
does not formally keep track of citizens' health complaints about gas
drilling and has not, as a result, linked drilling to any health
consequences.
"We have not made a conclusive link between an individual's health and
natural gas drilling," agency spokeswoman Brandi Hunter-Davenport said
in response to an Associated Press inquiry. "The Department will
continue to monitor any citizen complaints which come to our attention."
The AP asked the health department for data on the number of
drilling-related complaints it has received from citizens - and whether
the agency has ever made a finding that drilling impacted human health
- in the wake of claims by a northern Pennsylvania hairdresser who says
that a gas well near her home made her sick.
Though gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale has boomed since 2009, with
more than 3,200 wells drilled to date, Hunter-Davenport was unable to
say this week how many health complaints the agency has received and
investigated.
"Currently, we do not have a centralized database but are working with
the Marcellus Shale (Advisory) Commission and anticipate that in moving
forward we will be more systematically engaged in addressing the health
aspects," she said via email Friday.
Gov. Tom Corbett appointed the Marcellus commission to study the
economic, environmental and public health impacts of natural gas
drilling and to issue a set of recommendations.
A commission panel heard testimony last month from Health Secretary Eli
Avila, who acknowledged the department lacked a systematic approach to
investigating health concerns arising from gas drilling. Avila is
scheduled to appear before the full commission next week.
Hunter-Davenport said in an earlier email that the department looks
into every complaint it gets.
"If the Department would find that the health of the citizens of this
commonwealth were in jeopardy due to drilling or any other activity
within our borders, steps will be taken to alert the public and advise
on appropriate health responses," she said.
Crystal Stroud, 28, told an anti-drilling rally in Harrisburg this week
that her speech slurred, her balance faltered, her hands trembled, her
hair fell out and her heart rate and blood pressure rose after a gas
well was drilled 1,200 feet from the home she shares with her husband
and 4-year-old son.
She said a laboratory told her April 11 that her water well was
contaminated with barium, chloride, strontium, manganese, lead,
methane, radiological material and radon. And she said many others in
heavily drilled Bradford County have contracted mysterious ailments,
too.
The company that drilled the well, Dallas-based Chief Oil & Gas
LLC, has denied Stroud's claim, saying it investigated and "found no
evidence to date that we were the cause of the alleged contamination of
her water well."
A Chief spokeswoman said its well has not yet been hydraulically
fractured, and that none of the chemicals or metals that Stroud says
made her sick were used in the drilling process.