"Studies should include all the ways people can be exposed, such as
through air, water, soil, plants and animals," Dr. Christopher Portier
wrote to The Associated Press in an email.
Portier is director of the National Center for Environmental Health
at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
While other federal and state regulators are already studying the
impacts of gas drilling on air and water, Portier said research should
also include "livestock on farmed lands consuming potentially impacted
surface waters; and recreational fish from potentially impacted surface
waters."
Portier made clear that the science on the issue isn't settled yet.
"We do not have enough information to say with certainty whether
shale gas drilling poses a threat to public health," he wrote. "More
research is needed for us to understand public health impacts from
natural gas drilling and new gas drilling technologies."
He also suggested pre- and post-testing of private drinking water wells near drilling sites.
Another prominent scientist said the answers won't come quickly.
"I think it will take three to five years to sort through this," Duke University researcher Rob Jackson told AP in an email.
Jackson said that doesn't mean there isn't evidence of water
contamination by drilling in some communities— Wyoming, for example, or
Dimock, Pa.
"On the other hand a handful of cases of contamination is not enough to shut down an industry," he said.
Jackson was part of a team behind a much-discussed study last spring
on possible water well contamination from drilling in Pennsylvania.
Environmentalists hailed the study, while others, including the head of
the state Department of Environmental Protection, criticized it.
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