Deeman, it's not all going to plan in Quebec as Molopo prepares...

Deeman, it's not all going to plan in Quebec as Molopo prepares to drill Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu. Health issues have risen regarding Molopo's drilling nearby a daycare centre.

"As urban gas drilling expands, so do health concerns.”

After years of playing down risks, the state environmental agency, prompted by news media and a state senator, has recently acknowledged air quality problems. And the death of a utility worker this month in Cleburne, 30 miles south of Fort Worth (a line carrying Barnett Shale gas exploded after workers accidentally hit it), heightened anxieties. The issue has divided the city as it grapples with allowing drillers to put money in residents' pockets on the one hand and protecting public health and safety on the other.

But questions about air quality were raised in Fort Worth after officials in the nearby town of DISH, also above the Barnett Shale, blamed natural gas drilling for health issues. After DISH's Town Council paid for its own air quality tests, which found high levels of 15 chemicals, officials from the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality said they would take a closer look.

Now the agency has had to play catch-up in Fort Worth. Since the beginning of the year, it has hired additional inspectors and doubled the number of permanent air quality monitoring stations in the area.

It has also engaged in crisis management after the transparency of its test results was called into question.

At a January meeting, an agency official declared, "The air is safe," the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported. But an internal audit at the agency found that samples were not tested with proper equipment. A retest found that three samples were above certain limits for benzene; one sample, at a country club in town, was at levels high enough to cause nausea and headaches in some people."

Excerpts from article written by Asher Price published here: http://www.statesman.com/news/texas-politics/as-urban-gas-drilling-expands-so-do-health-744189.html

As the Australian company Molopo prepares to drill in Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu, too near a daycare center might I add, what are the risks taken to expose children to toxic gases? Is it worth it?