DANVILLE, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania health company says it
has gotten a $1 million grant to study possible health impacts of
natural gas drilling on the Marcellus Shale.
Geisinger Health
System said Monday that the Degenstein Foundation had awarded the money
to help underwrite what it called a "large-scale, scientifically
rigorous assessment" of the drilling.
Most of the money will be
used for data-gathering, and some will go toward developing studies of
the data. Officials said they expect other funders to come forward.
The
study is to look at detailed health histories of hundreds of thousands
of patients who live near wells and other facilities that are producing
natural gas from the Marcellus Shale formation thousands of feet
underground. The boom in drilling has generated jobs and billions of
dollars in revenue for companies and individual leaseholders, but it
also raised health concern.
Geisinger Health Systems of Danville,
Guthrie Health of Sayre and Susquehanna Health will collaborate on
planning and execution of the study, including developing a health
surveillance network aimed at assessing and reporting on the patient
data gathered from electronic health records.
"The goal is to
create a cross-disciplinary, integrated and sharable repository of data
on environmental exposures, health outcomes and community impacts of
Marcellus shale drilling — the first systematic longitudinal study to do
so," the announcement said. "Some of the potential health effects that
are likely to be investigated first include asthma, trauma and
cardiovascular disease."
Preliminary results could be available
within the next year, while other findings are expected in five years
and over the next two decades.
Many federal and state regulators
say hydraulic fracturing is safe when done properly, and that thousands
of wells have been drilled with few complaints of pollution. But
environmental groups and some doctors assert that regulations still
aren't tough enough and that the practice can pollute groundwater and
air.
A decision earlier this month by state regulators in New York
to delay a decision on shale gas development pending a more in-depth
health study in that state drew praise from environmental groups but
protests from landowners eager to reap profits from their mineral
resources and frustrated at another delay in a rulemaking process that
has kept drilling on hold for 4½ years.
Health Commissioner Nirav
Shah cited Geisinger's planned study as one of several that have been
initiated or published by the scientific community. Also cited was an
EPA study on potential impacts of fracking activities on drinking water
that is due to be completed in 2014 and a study recently announced by
researchers from the University of Pennsylvania in collaboration with
scientists from Columbia, Johns Hopkins and the University of North
Carolina.
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