Jim Willis
Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)
There was a sham hearing in Wilkes-Barre Wednesday on non-existent health issues related to Marcellus Shale development – unhealthy government at work.
A group of Pennsylvania senators are, once again, denigrating the miracle of Marcellus Shale drilling in their state. Only this time it’s even sleazier and lower than usual. This time they’re hinting that results from a so-called “study” not released to the public supposedly show that in two Marcellus Shale counties the average number of hospitalizations among the population has gone up versus a single, cherry-picked county with no Marcellus drilling.
An Unhealthy Government Hearing
What is outrageous is that the senators leaked that tiny little bit of information at a hearing, but have not provided any of the details–nor have they provided the study itself. So our hall of shame goes to state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Bethlehem Township, and state Sen. John Wozniak, D-Johnstown who ran a hearing yesterday to attack shale drilling.
Trevor Penning
Also in the hall of shame is Trevor M. Penning, professor of pharmacology and director of University of Pennsylvania’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology for testifying (colluding) at that hearing providing only partial information. Previous reports suggest he’s angling for more funding of his own research outfit, and his Center’s website, which indicates an association with junk scientist Lisa McKensie is hardly encouraging.
Penning was the senators’ stooge in an attempt to bad mouth shale drilling. Also making a cameo appearance was Pennsylvania’s anti-drilling Auditor General, Eugene DePasquale.
The more natural gas wells in an area, the more of its residents end up in the hospital.
So indicate the results of an unreleased study that was revealed at a state Senate Democratic Policy Committee hearing at King’s College on Wednesday on the subject of tracking, reporting and acting on public health concerns related to natural gas drilling…
Wednesday’s hearing, requested by state Sen. John Yudichak, D-Plymouth Township, and chaired by state Sen. Lisa Boscola, D-Bethlehem Township, included testimony by Trevor M. Penning, professor of pharmacology and director of University of Pennsylvania’s Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology.*
Here is the piddly we know about the so-called study and how it was conducted:
Since 2011, the center has had a Marcellus Shale working group to address the public health impact, [Penning] said. The center did a study focusing on two counties where natural gas drilling has grown dramatically between 2007 and 2013: Bradford and Susquehanna. Wayne County, where no gas drilling is taking place, was used as a control.
Researchers collected data from seven different insurance providers for the three counties, Penning said. They compared the density of the gas wells with inpatient health records, adjusting for population density.
“Our studies indicate that over time an increasing number of wells is significantly correlated with inpatient rates of hospitalization,” Penning stated.
Sen. John Wozniak, D-Johnstown, asked if there was any diagnosis.
Penning said the center is not ready to divulge the conditions yet because the study hasn’t been reviewed, but as soon as it is published, it will be made public.*
How convenient to make veiled references to a study you haven’t released. Until it is released and can be evaluated by honest scientific inquiry, Penning should keep his mouth shut and not be used as a stooge for senators with an obviously anti-drilling agenda. Perhaps Penning was promised funding for future projects? That’s how these things usually work. Perhaps DePasquale should be investigating that?
A State Senator Who Knows Better?
Editor’s Note: This hearing was a perfect demonstration of unhealthy government; using unreleased, unreviewed information to attack a private industry. It was political theatre related to the upcoming election, a sop to the radical fringe of a party apparatus that was successful in getting a moratorium party resolution passed several months ago. Yudichak, in particular, knows better. Back in November, he spoke at another meeting where he said this at a local meeting with contractors, trade unions, small manufacturers and others:
State Sen. John Yudichak Thursday said the Marcellus shale industry will lift Northeastern Pennsylvania “out of the cloud of economic hardship” and will continue to do so for generations to come…
“Thank you for being here today to help us shape a comprehensive energy policy for Pennsylvania that will mean jobs and business opportunities for Northeastern Pennsylvania,” Yudichak said. “We are all here for one reason and singular goal — to learn how NEPA can leverage the transformational economic opportunity presented by Marcellus shale into the creation of new jobs, new businesses and sustainable economic growth that will finally break the cycle of chronic high unemployment in the Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton metropolitan area…”
Yudichak said he has been particularly impressed with the tremendous turnout and enthusiastic interest in Thursday’s forum from leaders of organized labor, area business leaders and the many leaders of area colleges.
Yudichak said while the Marcellus boom has brought prosperity and economic development to many regions of the Commonwealth, creating thousands of direct and indirect jobs for Pennsylvania workers, unemployment remains “stubbornly too high” in Northeastern Pennsylvania and economic growth, he said, is static at best.
“The sobering economic numbers that continue to plague NEPA can be overcome,” he said. “They can be reversed if we make the most of the new energy economy developing around us. Marcellus shale presents that opportunity of NEPA.”
At the risk of sounding overly optimistic, Yudichak said the natural gas industry will “power modern manufacturing plants, fuel more efficient vehicles and light the way for new technologies” that push the boundaries of health, science and commerce.
Yudichak has been a fan of a severance tax and Wednesday’s move may have been an attempt to bully the industry a bit, or perhaps he was just pandering to part of his political base (SEIU health care workers?). There’s couldn’t be a better example, however, of how politicians work – of unhealthy government. By talking out of both sides of his mouth he plays the middle.
Senator John Yudichak with SEIU Guardian Healthcare Workers
Having said all that,what politician doesn’t? My own sense is that the guy has probably convinced himself that he IS the middle ground, so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of some great doubts over this fiasco. He’s supported the industry on many occasions and growth and development generally. He’s arguably one of the good guys. Still, how does a state senator not know hearsay isn’t acceptable as testimony? How does he not realize these health accusations, and others made and paid for by fractivist groups without an ounce of causal data to back them up, are farcical at best?
Moreover, as a resident of Wayne County and a former board member and chair of the Wayne Memorial Health System, I must remind him that, unlike Bradford and Susquehanna Counties, Wayne has a large influx of summer campers and second home owners that flood our health facilities on a seasonal basis, distorting all comparisons between the three counties in that regard. We also have a lot less farming and mining than the other two and we depended on the construction industry which has gone kaput while Bradford and Susquehanna have boomed.
Yudichak stepped in it with this bone-headed move to appease part of his party base. If he had merely come out and spoke in favor of more unbiased and objective health research, which he has previously supported and would benefit everyone, that could be applauded, but when he apparently masterminded a move to give voice to fractivist attempts to create a health issue and gave a government imprimatur to a study no one can see, test or challenge, he crossed the line into unhealthy government.
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Jim, you’re rather quick to fault the government for trying to get out in front of a problem. I’m sure this is merely another meaningless coincidence like all the examples of well contamination?
Besides, correlation is not the same as causation and there is a perfectly plausible explanation for what the study found – sick people are more likely to lease their property for drilling.
yea but did they determine if one county drank more milk than another … that certainly could account for it …or perhaps one had more mosquito bites than another or maybe global warming oh excuse maybe global climate change is higher in one than another ..or maybe …..
Now is the time to remind them again of the three “c’s” : coincidence, correlation and causation. Politicians use coincidence and correlation to denigrate anything that is on their political target list, artificially connecting facts which lack any dependence upon each other.
For instance, the increase in the number of activitists in Wayne County and Susquehanna County are likely the cause of all the increased health problems there. The fractivists arrived there in increased numbers at the same time as the alleged health problems occurred. Therefore the data suggests that the fractivists are the direct cause of all increases in health issues in those counties. We ought to have legislation enacted to place a moratorium on fractivists until extensive studies can be funded independently, then peered reviewed, then vetted in the public square of internet opinion, and finally reduced to corrective regulations of the fractivists (the substance of such regulations as yet unknown).
A much ignored tenet of all argument is that the person making a claim or allegation has the burden to prove that claim or to withdraw it. If I claim that the moon is made of Green Cheese, it does not become so until someone else disproves it. It remains a cheery speculation as cute as the claim that there is a man in the moon who smiles at us each night. (Oops, sorry, that one is true. Bad example.) However, proof requires creditable (verifiable) facts which progress dependently upon each other from the source to the conclusion. These are not easy tasks. The credibility issue is a big one, and the string of dependently linked facts must be without a break in the chain of logic or credibility. The devil is truly in the details, but the evil is in the politics of intellectual dishonesty.
How convenient that the control county is Wayne, where the Delaware River Basin Commission has taken the property rights of landowners there by refusing to enact regulations necessary for the industry to operate. Is this the Center for Environmental Toxicology giving DRBC a way to say “we told you so”? I can’t wait for the study to come out and I will be keenly interested in the funding of it.
Has anybody done a study on the overall health of on-site oil and gas workers? I’ve been around the industry for nearly forty years and rarely heard of anyone complaining of ill health due to the work environment. If anyone should be sick, it would be the rig-workers who are there day and night.
Also, road workers who breathe asphalt fumes when resurfacing highways. What about truck drivers? Wouldn’t they exhibit measurable ill-health effects from exposure to diesel exhaust? Toll takers, gas attendants, painters, plastic workers and a host of others exposed to petroleum derivatives. They should all exhibit higher incidence of disease.
Doesn’t seem logical that workers on the pad remain relatively healthy while those with intermittent exposure and living some distance away would be affected by air quality. I guess they could claim that their asthma, etc., would be aggravated. No incidence of widespread bad water, either. (BTW, methane in non-toxic. We are all full of it.) So what makes the folks claim they are sickened by drilling? Could be reverse placebo effect.
Anyhow, a good study on the subject would be illuminating.
Agreed on all points, Chris!
See: http://www.energyindepth.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Australian-Institute-Health-Survey.pdf
“The Australian Institute for Petroleum has sponsored the Health Watch study for over 25 years to monitor the long-term health of workers in the oil and natural gas industry. The study, independently conducted by the University of Adelaide, specifically looks at all causes of mortality amongst oil and gas workers and diagnosis of cancer and other lethal diseases. It’s a longitudinal study as well as researchers contact former industry employees periodically to obtain current information on their health status to include in the data. Below are some of the findings from the 2005 edition.
The age-adjusted death rate in men is significantly less than in the general Australian male population. Death rates in all major disease categories – heart disease, cancer, respiratory disease, diseases of the digestive system, and external causes (accidents, violence etc) – are also significantly less than the corresponding rates for the male population. (emphasis added)
“The chance of getting cancer is the same for men in this industry as for other Australians. This is so for all cancers combined and for most individual cancer types. “ (Page 42)
“The proportion of women in the Health Watch program remains very small and this prevents much detailed analysis. Women in the industry have death rates which are lower than that of women in Australia generally. No cancer type has occurred in a statistically significant excess, but the numbers of individual cancer types is too low for meaningful analysis.” (Page 33)
Chris, I doubt the oil and gas workers are drinking out of the containment ponds. Most likely they or the company bring their own drinking water from far off site.
Also, do you have any data to back up your suggestion that oil and gas workers are healthy. Are they the type that would publicly complaining of ill health due to their work environment? How long do you think they would keep that job if they did?
Your point #1… Do you think sewer workers drink out of the effluent pipe? Not likely. They probably prefer Snapple, as do oil and gas crews.
Point #2. I have absolutely no scientific data that O&G folks in the U.S. are more or less healthy than the populace at large. It’s only my non-statistically-valid empirical observation from forty years of experience. That is why I said “a good study on the subject would be illuminating.”
Point #3. It is quite possible workers would not complain of ill health. That is why a study on those most closely associated with the industry would be a revelation.
My guess off the bat… and I don’t feel like researching it at the moment, is that health and income are positively correlated, irrespective of one’s job category. Well-off folks, certainly white-collar types, likely have on average, access to better health care than the downtrodden. Your typical blue-collar, beer-swilling, bar-brawling rig worker gets plenty of exercise on site, makes $100,000 per year with fantastic benefits including full medical insurance. They may well get sick more often, but someone fixes them up.
To reiterate — a good study would be instructive.
Yes, and see:
http://www.epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View&FileStore_id=37188bea-2c5f-4100-a767-f264f1a1ced2
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1646287/pdf/amjph00281-0056.pdf
and
http://www.isr.umich.edu/src/seh/mprc/PDFs/Effects%20of%20Unemployment%20on%20Health%20in%20a%20Community%20Survey.pdf
Just another dog and pony show by a bunch of partisan politicians that all heat their houses with the same natural gas that they are railing against.
The best way Government can improve the health safety and welfare of the public is as follows:
1. Create Private Well Construction Standards.
2. Help fix the existing poorly constructed private wells and install water treatment – 50% of well owners drink contaminated water.
3. Manage uncontrolled urban runoff and better manage agricultural and manure runoff.
4. Develop a prescription drug management program to prevent improper disposal.
5. Get people back to work.
6. Develop a program and solid funding source to reclaim mine land and AMD waters and update water infrastructure- stop wasting growing greener impact fees on temporary improvements.
7. Improve the electric grid and encourage energy diversity.
Just my thoughts.
Want to make a difference – help support the Keystone Clean Water Team.
A great agenda!