Groups rip hospital ‘frack-ture’
Claim Cerberus’ shale extraction hurts environment
By Jerry Kronenberg
Saturday, February 18, 2012 – Updated 8 hours ago
Union and “green” groups are slamming Bay State hospital giant Steward Health Care’s owner for investing in “fracking” — an oil-and-gas extraction method that critics claim devastates the environment.
“It’s pretty ironic that they’re in both the fracking business and the hospital business,” said Kert Davies of Greenpeace USA. “I guess the twain meet if you have to go to the hospital because you’ve been poisoned by something having to do with fracking.”
Cerberus Capital Management, a New York private-equity firm that’s been snapping up nonprofit Massachusetts hospitals and turning them into for-profit operations, recently added fracking to the industries it invests in.
Cerberus bought Pennsylvania fracking firm Keane & Sons Drilling for an undisclosed sum.
Cerberus did not return calls seeking comment, but Mike Stengle of investment bank Capital Alliance confirmed that his company helped broker the deal.
Formally known as “hydraulic fracturing,” fracking involves pumping huge amounts of pressurized water and chemicals into the ground to break open shale deposits that contain oil and natural gas. The method has taken off in recent years, helping energy companies access U.S. fossil-fuel deposits they couldn’t otherwise reach.
But opponents claim fracking is an environmental disaster.
Greenpeace believes the method has polluted some U.S. regions’ land and drinking water with toxic chemicals. Critics also claim rocks subject to fracking release naturally occurring radioactivity, while some studies indicate the method causes earthquakes.
Still, Davies isn’t surprised Cerberus is involved in fracking and health care at the same time.
“Just because they own hospitals doesn’t mean they care about people — they just care about making money,” he said.
The Massachusetts Nurses Association — which has had a contentious relationship with Cerberus since the firm bought the Boston archdiocese’s former Caritas hospital system — isn’t surprised, either.
“It just raises again our concerns about private-equity firms entering health care,” union spokesman David Schildmeier said. “When push comes to shove, are they going to invest in the quality and safety of patient care, or just in improving profit margins?”
— jkronenberg@bostonherald.com
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