Rep. Sturla: “I’m offended by the drillers’ actions.”

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — The lawmaker who kicked off a furor over sexually transmitted diseases and Pennsylvania’s natural gas drilling boom said Wednesday that criticism of his remarks was an effort to kill a messenger with whom some industry boosters disagree on wider drilling-related issues, such as taxation and the environmental impact.

“I’m offended by the drillers’ actions and their willingness to come in in a Wild West way, I think that’s where the offense is,” Democratic Rep. Mike Sturla of Lancaster County said. “Maybe these guys are gentlemen that just spread sexually transmitted diseases, I don’t know.”

In an email to a reporter for the online news service Capitolwire, Sturla accused a member of Gov. Tom Corbett’s administration of downplaying the seriousness of community impacts created by drilling. Among other things, he suggested the influx of drilling hands has led to the spread of sexually transmitted disease “amongst the womenfolk.”

 Here is part of the Sturla email to Capitolwire:

“Also, aside from building roads so their trucks can get to drill sites and doing a little stream work to mitigate damage from their road building, exactly what are all those things the drillers are doing for the local communities? Patronizing the bars at night? Driving up the cost of rental housing? Spreading sexually transmitted disease amongst the womenfolk? Causing school districts to ask local governments to ban truck traffic on local roads during school bus pick up and drop off times so kids don’t get killed? Upgrading emergency preparedness equipment to handle a well blow out? Running compressor stations that have decibel levels equal to a jet engine?…Really community oriented stuff…”

That prompted a flurry of denouncements by Republicans, including a statement from the state Republican Party on Tuesday evening that called for Sturla to apologize for his “incredibly stupid comments.”

“I don’t know what is more offensive, Sturla’s reference to Pennsylvania women as ‘womenfolk’ or his assertion that we are promiscuous?” state Republican Party vice chair Joyce Haas said in the statement.

In May, Troy Community Hospital presented a report to a state commission studying the industry that said it had seen, among other worrisome things, an increase in STDs.

Desiree Rockwell, executive director of Partners in Family Development in Towanda, said the state Department of Health has shown her statistics that demonstrate an increase in gonorrhea and chlamydia cases since 2009 in north-central Pennsylvania.

However, the department said that it is too early to tell whether increases in certain STDs in geographic pockets across the state that it has seen in 2011 are related to the gas drilling boom.

“It’s not something we’ve been specifically tracking in patient interviews,” agency spokeswoman Christine Cronkright said in an email.

Sturla also maintained that the evidence shows that STDs are on the rise, and he said he would apologize to anyone who was offended by his reference to “womenfolk.”

“It was more in reference to how I perceived the out-of-state drillers viewing women in Pennsylvania,” he said.

Armed with billions of dollars and a new technique for tapping gas from thick rock, major drilling companies began descending on Pennsylvania in earnest in 2008 to exploit the Marcellus Shale.

The formation lies primarily beneath Pennsylvania, New York, West Virginia and Ohio. Pennsylvania is the center of activity, with more than 3,000 wells drilled in the past three years and thousands more planned in coming years.

The San Antonio Express-News recently did a story about Carrizo Springs, which is near the Eagle Ford Shale play in Texas, transforming from a small rural town to a boomtown.