An alliance between an Ephrata-based breast cancer group and a Marcellus Shale gas-drilling company has some environmentalists seeing pink.

As in a lighter shade of red.

It all started two summers ago when Chesapeake Energy Corp. employees went to bat for the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition.

The ballplayers, who were participating in PBCC's annual "Take a Swing Against Breast Cancer" home-run derby, wore shirts blazoned with the PBCC pink ribbon.

Pink has become an international brand color signifying breast cancer awareness, prevention and wellness.

Drilling for natural gas in shale entails pumping pressurized water and some hazardous chemicals deep underground, a process that has been blamed for numerous health problems nationwide. But there's no smoking gun tying hydrofracking to any specific illness.

Matt Sheppard, Chesapeake's senior director for corporate development and government affairs, said in a recent statement that drilling naysayers are a fringe element pursuing a bogus public health threat.

Environmentalists contend there are enough unanswered questions about hydrofracking that it's inappropriate for the industry to don the health and wellness banner.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber, an ecologist who will appear Thursday at Franklin & Marshall College, said she'll critique the Chesapeake Energy-PBCC connection during her lecture.

Because the coalition emphasizes health and disease prevention, Steingraber said, this is "something that needs to be talked about."

Steingraber is a cancer survivor, a scholar-in-residence at Ithaca College, and the author of three books about environmental links to cancer. Her presentation comes about midway through National Breast Cancer Awareness Month.

Lancaster Marcellus Shale watchdog Elaine Lapp Esch said the issue begs an important question:

"In a tough economy, how do [charities] balance the need for funding against the conflicts of interest inherent to accepting money?"

PBCC Executive Director Heather Hibshman said Chesapeake Energy has been "a wonderful supporter" of the coalition's past two home-run derbies.

"We get all kinds of sponsors," and their help is welcomed in the effort to educate and aid women facing breast cancer, said Hibshman, who noted that about 140,000 Pennsylvanians are living with the disease.

"I'd be happy to see what [Steingraber] has to show me," Hibshman said.

However, she added, "I haven't read anything that shows any correlation" between fracking and breast cancer.

There are many theories circulating about environmental triggers for cancer, Hibshman said.

"I'm not a scientist. I'm not a researcher. I run a nonprofit. I'm going to leave it at that."

A congressional inquiry, made public in April, found that energy companies injected millions of gallons of hydrofracking fluid containing hazardous or cancer-causing chemicals, such as benzene, into the ground between 2005 and 2009.

The drilling industry maintains that   hydrofracking is safe.

Chesapeake Energy, based in Oklahoma City, Okla., is a top U.S. producer of oil and natural gas. According to its website, environmental protection is a priority for the company, which recently eliminated a quarter of the fracking fluid additives used in most of its shale plays.

The company generated more than $9 billion in revenues last year, according to The Associated Press and online business journals. And Chesapeake reported more than $25 million in charitable giving in 2010.

"We strongly support the work of the Pennsylvania Breast Cancer Coalition and invite our more thoughtful neighbors in Pennsylvania to join us in fighting a true health risk," Chesapeake's Sheppard said in a statement.

"We have long believed that the vocal minority of anti-economic-development activists were out of touch with the public interest they claim to speak for," Sheppard said, "and this [brouhaha] is clear proof."

Travis Windle, a spokesman for a  Canonsburg-based industry group, Marcellus Shale Coalition, said environmentalists are making outrageous inferences about drilling and public health.

"It's unfortunate" that the community is giving a platform to "an out-of-state ... professor," he said, referring to Steingraber.

Jennifer Chandler, of the National Council of Nonprofits in Washington, D.C., said the issue of corporate sponsorship is a thorny one.

She cautioned against a "rush to judgment" of the Chesapeake Energy-PBCC bond.

"Any partnership can look funny, depending on what lens you look through," Chandler said.

"If anything," she said, "it's an irony."

Contact Sunday News staff writer Jon Rutter at jrutter@lnpnews.com.