Green City Journal

In the midst of a national health care reform battle, a small drama unfolds in northeast Philadelphia. Last week, the Pennsylvania House held up $175 million in additional funding to Temple University. Representative John Taylor described the move as a “wake up call for Temple University” to live up to their responsibility to the public.

The communities of Port Richmond, Kensington, Fishtown, Bridesburg and Juniata coalesced last December amid rumors Temple University Health System (TUHS) planned to close down the busy, full-service Northeastern Hospital. Despite the effort of community members and local lawmakers, Temple refused to discuss their plans. In fact, they would not even confirm their intention until they announced in March they would close the hospital. They gave two months notice, which is the minimum required by the state. Temple did the minimum.

Back in March a coalition of local legislators – Representatives John Taylor and Mike O'Brien, and Senators Mike Stack and Larry Farnese - found some leverage in the House's authority to grant supplemental funding to Temple University; they said they would hold the funding up come budget time. Temple believed they were bluffing. They apparently figured that since the hospital would cease admissions in mid-May, and be completely empty by end of June, that lawmakers would not have a motivation at budget time to follow through. They were wrong.

Temple reacted to last week's news by threatening to pass the costs onto their students via a 45% tuition hike, despite a balance sheet showing robust cash reserves (http://www.temple.edu/budget/documents/boardandauxiliarybudgets.pdf). The move is intended to inflame the public and pressure politicians to back down.

originally published at ProPublica 8-4-09

Pennsylvania environment officials are investigating another natural gas well leak, after residents near the town of Roaring Branch complained last month that rust-colored water was flowing from a spring and two small creeks were bubbling with methane gas.

The incident is the latest in a string of more than 50 similar cases related to gas drilling in the state, and comes as ProPublica published an article last week reporting that such events were more frequent than officials said [1].

According to the Department of Environmental Protection, at least four homes in the rural north-central part of Lycoming County are now being supplied with drinking water and 18 are having their water tested or their homes monitored for gas while the investigation continues. At least one woman was temporarily evacuated from her home last week as a precaution, according to Robert Yowell, north-central regional director for the DEP's oil and gas bureau.

Officials suspect that a well casing on one of three natural gas wells drilled by East Resources failed, allowing the gas to migrate into the ground and the streams, according to Yowell and a statement e-mailed to ProPublica from DEP headquarters. The wells were drilled into the Oriskany geologic formation, not the Marcellus shale, where much of the state's new development is targeted. The department is analyzing water and gas samples and has promised to post the results on the DEP Web site by the end of the week.

The well casing [2] consists of several layers of steel pipe and concrete that surround a well structure and is intended to protect groundwater supplies from the gas and drilling fluids inside of the well. Unlike many other gas drilling states, Pennsylvania doesn't have regulations that require this concrete and casing be tested to confirm its strength.

East Resources referred questions to its general counsel who was not immediately available for comment.