Stop Natural Gas Drilling in Pennsylvania

Because hydraulic fracturing pollutes local water ways and drinking wells, increases the risk for cancer and other illnesses, and destroys local wildlife, it must be stopped. The Marcellus Shale, a huge rock formation about one mile underground, extends from New York to Tennessee with millions of tiny pores where natural gas is trapped. To extract this gas, a technology known as Hydraulic Fracturing Drilling, or Fracking, is used. Once a well is dug, Fracking requires high pressure blasting of millions of gallons of water, sand, and chemicals deep underground. This causes the shale, a fine-grained sedimentary rock, to create fissures that open pores and to allow natural gas to rise to the surface (Federman, 2010).

Drinking wells and local water ways get contaminated when the recaptured water is not properly disposed of or stored. Generally, wells are fracked up to 10 times in a lifetime and 15 to 40 percent (a million or more gallons) of heavily polluted water flows back to the surface. This byproduct water, when recaptured, is often laced with highly corrosive salts. Carcinogens like Benzene and radioactive elements like radium occur naturally, thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the Fracking itself.

In Dimock, Pennsylvania, Cabot Oil and Gas contaminated the local water supply after a stray drill bit banged four drinking wells in 2008. This caused some people's drinking water to turn black or orange, and some turned bubbly. On New Year's Day 2009, one well exploded due to a methane migration and 12 other wells had elevated metal and toluene levels. Residents also reported foul smelling tap water the color of unpasteurized cider (Cusolito, 2010). In September of 2009, over 8,000 gallons of hazardous drilling fluids spilled into nearby creeks and fields. A lake, into which the creek emptied, over 10,000 fish died. Residents of Dimock also reported that animals began losing their fur shortly after drilling started. It was presumed that the local stream where the animals drank had been contaminated.

This prompted 15 families of Dimock to sue Cabot for poisoning their water and exposing them to toxic chemicals related to natural gas drilling. The families claimed this exposure led to personal injury, including neurological and gastrointestinal complications. Pennsylvania's Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) fined Cabot $120,000 and ordered the company to provide temporary water supplies to 13 of the 15 families in the affected area (Federman, 2010).

On October 26, 2010, the Democratic Governor, Ed Rendell, signed an executive order protecting Pennsylvania's state forests from any new natural gas development activities. This order banned leases requiring new surface disturbances to protect the pristine nature of publicly owned forests. An extensive evaluation of the state forest system, conducted by the Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) over a period of seven months, found that additional leases could endanger the environmental quality and character of these tracts of forest as well as pose a risk to Pennsylvania's nearly $6 billion forest products industry. The executive order required any drilling companies who wanted to drill on public lands to obtain an assessment of environmental impacts from the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources before applying for a permit with the Department of Environmental Protection. This was an effective moratorium on new drilling on state land. Governor Rendell stated that "drilling companies rush to grab private lands across the state has left few areas untouched by this widespread industrial activity. We need to protect our un-leased public lands from this rush because they are the most significant tracts of undisturbed forest remaining in the state (Pennsylvania Office of the Governor, 2010)."

Many advocates for drilling state that drilling for natural gas has provided needed jobs and tax revenue for state and local communities. In 2008, over 29,000 new jobs were created in Pennsylvania due to new drilling sites (Hobson, 2010). These same sites also brought in over $240 million in state, local, and federal tax revenue. The American Petroleum Institute has projected that natural gas extracted from the Marcellus shale formation could provide 280,000 jobs and $6 billion in local, state, and federal tax revenue over the next decade. Some geologists estimate that the Marcellus shale contains enough natural gas to power the United States for two decades. With today's economic strains, people in towns that live above the Marcellus shale are finding it hard not to sign a lease to drill under their land. The drilling companies are saving towns from bankruptcy and people from ruin.

With the type of job and revenue numbers that the American Petroleum Institute had projected, the current Republican Governor of Pennsylvania Tom Corbett, rescinded the ban on Marcellus Shale drilling in state forests in March of 2011, fulfilling a campaign promise. This move, not only risky but rushed, has basically removed the DCNR from blocking any permits to drill. Governor Corbett stated that the previous ruling was being rescinded as unnecessary and redundant of existing practices. Since the 2010 elections, Republican leaders are emboldened to help their industry campaign contributors (T. Scolnick 2011). State Republican Senator Mary Jo White, Chairwoman of the Senate Environmental Resources and Energy Committee, agrees with the current Governor's decision. She is also the recipient of campaign contributions from electric utilities, mining interests, and oil and gas firms in the sum of $80,000.

To dispose of the recaptured water, several methods can be used: injection wells, wastewater treatment plants, evaporation pits, dumping and recycling. Companies have the freedom to choose which method they prefer to utilize. Some will dump the waste water into creeks and ponds, or store the tainted water in evaporation pits, some as big as five acres of land. If the evaporation pits are not correctly lined with plastic, wastewater can seep into nearby wells and waterways (Cusolito, 2010). Wastewater treatment plants usually don't have the proper equipment to deal with contaminates of this type of tainted water. Injection wells are wells dug deep into the ground where the water is dumped and stored. In Pennsylvania, this type of well cannot be dug due to the shale so the water is then shipped out to other states with the wells but this is very costly.

Recycling has been the preferred method within the last 18 months. Drilling companies have called this a win-win situation. By reusing the tainted water, it reduces fresh water demand and eliminates the need to dispose of the water.