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Environmental groups: Health department policy improvements for fracking fall short

Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, PA) - 8/20/2014

Aug. 20--Despite efforts this week to improve procedure, environmentalists say the state health department could still do better when handling health complaints related to natural-gas development in Pennsylvania.

One day after the department announced improved procedures for handling complaints, the Philadelphia-based group PennEnvironment delivered a petition with bearing 405 health care professionals' signatures.

The petition urged lawmakers to investigate the complaints in order to verify they have all been adequately addressed. It also requests lawmakers write new guidelines for handling future complaints.

"Pennsylvanians deserve to have the confidence that the agency charged with protecting the public health will do just that," PennEnvironment spokesman Adam Garber said in a news release.

The department has been under fire since reports, first published by NPR, claimed the department allegedly ignored calls about possible health problems connected to drilling and hydraulic fracturing.

Former department employees told NPR a list of 19 so-called "buzzwords" like "skin rash," "cancer cluster" and "fracking" was circulated to prompt call-takers to send on complaints to the department's Bureau of Epidemiology.

More than a dozen complainers have told the groups their calls never were returned.

Health department Secretary Michael Wolf insisted all complaints were documented and sent to the appropriate spot.

The department on Monday announced it is tightening up procedures for processing complaints.

PennEnvironment spokeswoman Kristen Cevoli called the new procedures "a step in the right direction," but the department hasn't yet sufficiently addressed their concerns.

Impact fee fund

State Senate Bill 790 drafted last year proposes to set aside $3 million from Act 13 impact fee dollars natural gas drillers pay that would be used to study government health services.

The funding also would pay for private health care providers to receive training in occupational and environmental medicine.

The bill, co-sponsored by Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, Sen. Lisa Baker, R-Lehman Township, and Sen. John Blake, D-Archbald, also would fund the health department to study air quality effects to health and disease in regions where hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is happening.

The bill has been stuck in committee since last April.

AG involvement

Last month, two other anti-fracking groups brought their own research to the state Attorney General's Office and asked that agents there look into the complaints that allegedly were swept under the rug.

Food & Water Watch of Washington, D.C., and Berks Gas Truth of Kutztown have sought out more than a dozen individuals who claimed the department ignored them.

So far, agents have been interviewing people the groups have identified.

"What happens after that, we don't know yet," Berks Gas Truth founder Karen Feridun said. "But we're hopeful."

It appears state officials simply were unprepared for the drilling deluge that rocked the state starting in 2008, she said.

"I'm tougher on Pennsylvania, not just because I live here, but this is not the first state where fracking happened," Feridun said "They didn't bother to spend any time studying this."

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