Pitt loses Marcellus Shale research funds

Heinz Endowments will no longer fund Marcellus Shale gas drilling research at Pitt because the… Heinz Endowments will no longer fund Marcellus Shale gas drilling research at Pitt because the school focused too much on research and not enough on advocacy.

The University will continue to research the public health impact surrounding Marcellus Shale gas drilling, but Pitt will no longer run programs such as FracTracker.org, an online tool collecting data on the drilling.

Heinz Endowments previously funded the FracTracker database at Pitt with an $1,800,000 grant. The foundation is currently seeking a new place to run its programs.

The foundation supports projects that aim to improve quality of life in the Pittsburgh region, and focuses on five disciplines which are represented by their grant programs: arts and culture, children, youth and families, education, environment and innovation economy, according to their web site.

The withdrawn funding marks an end to one of the most prolific projects for the Center for Healthy Environments & Communities (CHEC), part of the Graduate School of Public Health. The center has also had two directors in the past year, and the position is currently vacant.

Despite withdrawal of funding for the programs, Allison Schlesinger, a spokeswoman for Pitt’s Graduate School of Public Health, said Pitt will continue to do research around Marcellus Shale drilling.

“We will continue to do that research, they’re just not funding it,” Schlesinger said.

Heinz Endowment officials were not immediately available for comment.

Despite the removal of research programs, Schlesinger said that CHEC is still grateful for the funding from the endowments for its other programs.

She said GSPH and Heinz Endowments will “continue to work together to find a permanent home for FracTracker.org and to establish joint research priorities.”

Heinz Endowments founded CHEC in 2004 under a grant, and it will continue to fund multiple research programs at the center on air quality, water quality and other public health issues that impact southwestern Pennsylvania, Schlesinger said.

Schlesinger said Heinz Endowments will no longer fund Marcellus Shale research programs at Pitt because the center favors research over advocacy.

She said Heinz Endowments officials feel CHEC is not doing enough community outreach and advocacy based on the research.

“CHEC has become uncomfortable with outreach,” Schlesinger said. “We are a University research center, of course we favor research. That’s what we’re supposed to do.”

Schlesinger said that while the school doesn’t oppose advocacy and outreach, its primary job is research. She said advocacy and outreach must be research-based.

The same issue of research versus advocacy caused former director of the center, Dr. Conrad “Dan” Volz Jr., to resign in April. His successor and former dean of GSPH, Dr. Bernard Goldstein, also recently resigned from the position.

The Pitt News reported in April that Volz said he left because his beliefs concerning environmental advocacy and public health did not match those of the University, especially when it came to Marcellus Shale drilling.

The former Pitt professor is an open critic of Marcellus Shale drilling and said that the University was not allowing him to openly voice his dissent, so he left of his own accord.

In the month prior to his resignation, Volz published controversial research linking drilling to contaminated drinking water, specifically citing high levels of bromide in the Josephine brine treatment facility in Indiana County, Pa.

Schlesinger said Goldstein was also an advocate against natural gas drilling and spoke out at numerous community events.