Pennsylvania's oversight of shale gas production should serve as a "cautionary tale" of how not to handle petroleum production, a former Keystone State environmental official said today.

"Pennsylvania is playing catch-up to this industry," said John Quigley, former secretary of the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. "We have become a cautionary tale for the world."

Quigley, who ran the department under former Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell, spoke at a Capitol Hill panel discussion on shale gas put on by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI).

As secretary, he did not regulate oil and gas in the state, but oversaw state parks and forestland. He is now a strategic adviser to the nonprofit Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future.

Pennsylvania has seen intense gas development since 2005 as a result of advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling technology. Environmentalists and neighbors of drilling sites have complained that production has caused a host of problems for the environment and human health, including water contamination.

But the gas industry and its supporters point to large gains in employment and economic development in the past few years.

Before Quigley spoke, Jeanne Briskin, leader of U.S. EPA's Hydraulic Fracturing Research Task Force, outlined plans for her agency's study of hydraulic fracturing, an effort that won't be completed until 2014. She said that the study could involve methane contamination of drinking water supplies. Methane contamination is generally not thought to be caused by the fracturing process itself but by faulty well construction.

"It's possible we'll be looking at that issue," Briskin said.

EPA could look at methane contamination as part of a series of case studies of communities affected by drilling and others where drilling is just starting. But final decisions have not been made on which case studies will be undertaken.