To its credit, the Dept. of Environmental Protection has launched a one-year long study of the air pollution associated with the processing and transmission of shale natural gas. The facilities where the air quality will be monitored are all in Chartiers and Hickory Townships in Washington County. As George Jugovic of PennFuture pointed out the data is necessary, but the time period should be more than one year, and we do yet know how frequently measurements will be made and how close to the operations the monitors will be placed.