Fourth in a series
Re “Vice Mayor in Quest of Proof That Fracking Is Harmful”
[img]1154|right|Meghan Sahli-Wells||no_popup[/img]A week ago tonight, more than a dozen fervent anti-fracking activists stepped to the microphone in Council Chambers and told the City Council that fracking should be banned or suspended myriad of health problems they said they have found in their own private lives, among friends and neighbors.
One professor said he has lost two wives to cancer in the last 20 years and while he cannot prove it, fracking may have been a traceable cause. The audience gasped.
Vice Mayor Meghan Sahli-Wells listened with a heavyweight heart.
And then she told the newspaper: “What is really lacking here is a comprehensive health study.
“I have to say that it has been extremely frustrating,” and she drew out the last two words, “to go to the Community Advisory Panel meetings (the watchdog over the Inglewood Oil Field meets monthly at Kenny Hahn State Park) and hear a discussion about the only health study ever done. They say only one has been done because the county did not give them enough money to conduct a comprehensive study. ‘So this is all we have.’”
Scarcity of reliable data, however, has not inhibited activists and prevented them from making claims that do not seem to rise to the level of scattered hearsay.
“I strongly believe we need more thorough research,” Ms. Sahli-Wells said.
(To be continued)
