The Ministry of Health has confirmed to Opinion250 that the review is in direct response to a town hall meeting involving Premier Christy Clark and the Ministers of Health, Energy and Mines, and Transportation held with concerned area landowners in Fort St. John back on March 22nd.

Many of the landowners were galvanized by an explosion at an EnCana wellsite near the rural community of Pouce Coupe back in November of 2009. "It was definitely a catalyst for us because it was probably the first time that we had seen livestock killed and injuries to people," says Lois Hill, a spokesperson for Peace Environment & Safety Trustee Society (PEST).

"The Oil & Gas Commission told us at a public meeting (just after the incident) that they have neither the mandate nor the expertise to look at health implications," says Hill. "So we realized that we'd better do some research and figure out how we can protect ourselves."

Hill lives on a farm 20-kilometres northwest of Dawson Creek and has one dozen wells around her house. She points out, "Incidents of a lesser magnitude - and I mean toxic gas leaks - are happening daily and weekly in areas where shale gas developments are happening." She says in the one week period between this past Christmas and New Year's there were two leaks and one of them shut down a public road for three days.

"I've got a two-page list of people in our area who have been affected by gas leaks - been to the hospital," says the PEST spokesperson. "It's all documented, but our (provincial) government says it's never happened."

Gwen Johansson is a municipal councillor in Hudson's Hope and a member of the Custodians of the Peace Country Society. Her group shares PEST's concerns about the health implications - both the effects of low level exposure over a long period of time and the issues surrounding accidents and catastrophic events. Johansson says the literature is out there - there are some peer-reviewed studies detailing connections between exposure to hydrogen sulfide and health impacts, but there's nothing but anecdotal evidence in the Peace Region.

"People are knocked down sometimes by H₂S and then they recover, but they don't recover completely," says Johansson. "We can't talk about knowing this is happening because there's no evidence and there's no proof, right? So what we have to talk about is the uncertainty of living with it."

On February 7th, PEST submitted a 27-page document that had been seven months in the making - the group asked a law firm to research whether current regulation of the oil and gas industry adequately protects public health. The submission requested a public inquiry into the matter.

Hill says the report didn't make it to then-Minister Colin Hansen's desk. Pest re-submitted it after Christy Clark became premier and the March 22nd meeting ensued. This past Friday, Ministry of Health spokesperson, Ryan Jabs, confirmed Mike de Jong has called for a review, but whether it will be a full public inquiry remains to be seen. "At that public meeting, the minister said we would look into the health effects of the projects and so, out of that, he's asked our ministry to start to work on a plan around the scope and nature of what we would actually look at," says Jabs.

"That's good," responds Hill. "I just hope we can believe it because they also told us at that meeting that the Oil & Gas Commission is in the final stages of putting into place a permanent air monitoring system - the OCG had never heard of that. So I would like to hear from them - I haven't."