Boufadel

Seeing little interest from the state, Boufadel is hoping that Philadelphia will step up and, in its own interest, commission such a study, much like New York City did last fall, when it hired a consultant whose research convinced New York's environmental regulators to effectively block drilling, at least for now, in that city's watershed.

The Clog 2010

The Environmental Protection Agency is in the midst of a large-scale study of hydraulic fracturing, but it could take years, Boufadel says, and won't be the kind of localized study he says Philadelphia needs.

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"The idea of assuming that whatever they inject would never come up is really not scientific," says Boufadel.

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Curtis Jones Jr. plans to hold hearings on the possible impacts to Philadelphia of fracking this fall, and has invited experts, including Boufadel, to testify.

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"And the more I read, the more I realized there's not much done in terms of scientific, objective studies on this," Boufadel recalls.

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For Boufadel, such reasoning is backward: Without studies, how can we know what problems might surface?

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He's become an expert: When scientists discovered a few years ago that the Exxon Valdez oil was still resurfacing, the federal government hired Boufadel to help explain why.

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"We need many studies, not just one," says Boufadel.

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Boufadel estimates such a study would cost between $250,000 and $500,000 - not exactly chump change, but considerably less than, say, the $8 million the Philadelphia Eagles owed the city in skybox revenue as of

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When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April, Boufadel - who now chairs Temple's Department of Civil and

The Clog 2010