PITTSBURGH (AP) — Almost two years after it began, a
much-publicized plan to study possible health impacts from gas drilling
is still in the process of collecting data.
Geisinger Health
Systems, of Danville, began seeking partners for the long-term project
in early 2012. It’s secured at least $1.3 million in funding and has
attracted a wide range of medical, environmental and academic partners.
For now, the main goal is to build a data warehouse available to
researchers.
Geisinger spokeswoman Patti Urosevich said in an
email that the project has collected Pennsylvania data on traffic and
accidents, air pollution emissions, and the locations of thousands of
gas wells and more than 600 compressor stations, which feed the gas
through pipelines.
Urosevich wrote that once the data warehouse is
complete, researchers will be able to identify and investigate trends
by merging health information with data such as geography, traffic, or
the environment.
Guthrie Health, of Sayre, and Susquehanna Health
are other major partners in the study, and as a group they have access
to detailed health histories of hundreds of thousands of patients who
live near wells and other facilities that are producing natural gas from
the underground Marcellus Shale formation.
The Marcellus lies
under large parts of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio and New York.
While the boom in drilling has generated jobs and billions of dollars in
revenue for companies and individual leaseholders, it also raised
health concerns.
One public health expert welcomed the Geisinger
work but said a bigger problem remains: the state of Pennsylvania isn’t
doing enough to fund even basic research into possible health impacts of
gas drilling.
It’s the state’s responsibility to collect public
health data, said Bernard Goldstein, a professor emeritus at the
University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health who is not part of the
Geisinger project.
Goldstein noted that a state commission
suggested two years ago that the Department of Health be given $2
million to create a statewide health registry to track illnesses
potentially related to gas drilling. But representatives from Gov. Tom
Corbett’s office and the state Senate cut the funding.
Alan
Krupnick, an energy and risk management expert who’s on the Geisinger
project executive committee, wrote in an email that health care
providers "are sitting on a treasure trove of health data" that could be
compared to shale gas development "to find out if and the extent to
which these activities are affecting health."
Krupnick is a researcher at Resources for the Future, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C. think tank.
In
early December, the Geisinger project was awarded a $250,000 grant from
the U.S. Geological Survey to survey and test 72 private water wells in
Lycoming County, which has seen heavy drilling activity. Urosevich said
that work should provide insights "into the possible effects of natural
gas drilling, agriculture, leaking septic systems and industries on the
groundwater."
Geisinger researchers say they plan to study rates
of asthma, premature births, and motor vehicle injuries in areas with
heavy drilling activity, but there’s no specific schedule for
publishing.
In a recent newsletter that discussed the project,
lead researcher David Carey said timing is critical. "If we wait too
long, it will be hard to get baseline data," Carey said, adding that
they need to move toward "doing some analysis."
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