The Marcellus Shale gas has become an increasingly hot topic in the area, both for the potential to create wealth through jobs and royalties, and the potential for serious environmental degradation through the arguably poor regulation of the hydro-fracturing process. And while, I cannot support or refute either claim, I feel that the gold rush attitude we are attaching to this subject will only come back to harm us.
Let us examine past gold rush mentalities in Pennsylvania. Our Commonwealth is named so for the great expanse of forested land explorers found here. Subsequently, that valuable forest land was rushed – and the timber cut. In our ancestors’ haste and greed, they failed to heed this reality that – when you clear-cut forests you get soil erosion, serious incursions of mud into tributaries and rivers, the tainting of water supplies, and destruction of farmland. After many years of destruction, plans for harvesting timber were put in place to preserve the soil and water in the area to be timbered.
Let’s move forward in to the 20th century, when coal was pulled from the hills of Pennsylvania as quickly as modern machinery could move it. A myriad of problems in past have made us all aware the of the destruction of water supplies through mine drainage and water table alteration – a problem we are just now fixing.
So, in short, I would just ask that we step back and slow down – knowing all of the facts and ramifications before plunging headlong into another gold rush opportunity. We want to be able to tell our children and grandchildren that we did our best and learned from past mistakes to make the Marcellus play a lesson in exploration, not exploitation.
And to answer the why in the title – we have only ourselves to blame.
Ben Hoffman
Karthaus