Policymakers in Pennsylvania should immediately strengthen rules that make areas around sensitive ecosystems, water sources and places where people live or work off limits to natural gas drilling, an environmental group said Thursday.

The message comes as drilling intensifies in the hotly pursued Marcellus Shale formation, the nation's largest-known natural gas reservoir, and state officials consider adding extra safety precautions around drilling sites.

PennEnvironment noted that little formal scientific study has been completed to document the potential health hazards of water or air pollution from gas drilling sites where high-volume hydraulic fracturing is conducted. Industry advocates contend their work is environmentally responsible and heavily regulated.

But PennEnvironment said permitted Marcellus Shale sites are within two miles of numerous day cares, schools and hospitals in Pennsylvania. It also said that there are hundreds of instances of environmental violations flagged by state regulators at Marcellus Shale drilling sites within two miles of schools or day cares.

Current Pennsylvania law provides for a buffer of 200 feet between a drilling site and buildings and private water wells, as well as a 100-foot buffer around many waterways and wetlands. PennEnvironment's Erika Staaf said her organization ideally would like to see mile-wide buffers as protection from potential drilling-related air or water contamination, although it is unlikely that the state Legislature would approve that.

"We have to step back and say, 'What is the right distance and what are we able to see move through the Legislature?'" Staaf said. "But what we know right now is the distance (allowed in current law) is too close, and it needs to be farther away."

A spokesman for a leading Marcellus Shale exploration company, Range Resources Corp. of Fort Worth, Texas, said hospitals and schools in Pennsylvania, if not in other states, have signed leases that allow drilling nearby, and that pollution from a drilling site is no more dangerous than that from a construction site.

...