Studies may eliminate community's fears
By: Bob Weir
The News Connection

During a Town Hall meeting in Lantana last week, to discuss the effects of gas drilling on community health, representatives of the Dept. of State Health Services told the crowd of about 200 area residents that Texas health officials are waiting for lab results from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after selecting 28 residents at random for biological sampling that could determine if they’ve been exposed to toxic substances. Even the cold rainy evening didn’t stop the large group from packing the house because of increasing concerns about childhood leukemia, alleged by some to be directly related to the numerous gas rigs sprouting up like weeds all over North Texas. Much of the alarm resulted from a report by state environmental officials confirming that elevated levels of benzene were discovered at some natural gas facilities. The 28 people being tested were randomly selected from the residents of Dish, Texas, a small town about 10 miles southwest of the City of Denton. State officials agreed to do the sampling after Dish authorities paid for the town’s own air quality study.

The Oil and Gas Accountability Project followed that study with a survey that showed many of the health symptoms residents were experiencing could be associated with exposure to toxic substances. The operative word is “could.” Nevertheless, state environmental officials said they are continuing to monitor a complex of compression and metering facilities on the edge of Dish. Texas State Representative Tan Parker and Denton County Commissioner Andy Eads are to be commended for organizing the Lantana meeting in order to disseminate as much factual information as possible to a concerned community. Although there’s always the possibility that people have become unnecessarily alarmed, a thorough investigation of the health risks is the safe and reasonable way to deal with their fears. At the risk of being redundant, this editorial space has opined in the past that, since the Barnett Shale has been here for thousands of years, there’s no reason to believe it will disappear before proper tests are completed.