Out Of Sight, Out of Mind...

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at least to most people. The gas and oil drillers have had a great few years in PA, and this particular rig in the Allegheny Forrest, one of thousands, is located about two miles from town as the crow flies, one and a half miles into the woods from the nearest public road. These are not Marcellus Shale wells, mostly shallower conventional wells using vertical and horizontal drilling techniques which together have glutted the market with cheap gas- $2.50 per thousand cubic feet down from $4-$5 a few years ago. As the pictures show the workers follow existing roads built by past drillers and loggers or bulldoze new ones to reach their desired locations. Overtime a vast network of trails has been created in the woods around here, most of them gated shut to motorized vehicles except those of the companies, although walking and mountain biking is still allowed. It is public land so the government owns the surface while the private companies own the underground minerals and they are allowed to access them. Until recently, there have been no federal regulations regarding the chemicals the companies use to “frack” (crack) the rock to release the gas, so although rare, a few towns and homes have had their drinking water contaminated. Methane sometimes builds up and explodes as well. Royalties paid to private landowners are at a minimum 12.5%, but there are no taxes paid to the state, rather a fixed, convoluted “impact fee” is issued per well, lobbied by the companies to a receptive governor whose campaign was partly financed by them, and essentially forced upon local municipalities at cost of their local zoning codes. The promise of course is new jobs and surely some have been created. But with the glut of gas new well drilling has slowed so there have been layoffs, and now the promise is in the other products that can be made from natural gas. To exploit those, Shell Oil is planning to build a new petrochemical plant in western PA. As of last year the industry made about $3.5 billion gross on the gas alone and paid about $400 million in royalties. They claim to have invested 11 billion over the last four years drilling 2,200 wells statewide, and will spend a few billion more on pipelines, but the supply is so tremendous that America will be burning natural gas for a long time; eventually electric power plants as well as transportation vehicles will use it. At 3 billion a year, not including other products, the bulk of their investments should be paid off in about five years, after which stockholders and those directly involved will be the primary beneficiaries. Of course, the more energy independent we are the better, and natural gas burns much cleaner than coal or oil, so overall the Marcellus Shale gas fields should be a positive development for our country. Lower prices have already benefited the average consumer, although no doubt the companies will eventually manipulate the price back up by withholding and manipulating the supply as they have begun to do. The land around here has been decimated by oil and gas and logging companies for over a century, yet in all my walking I observe no permanent damage, rather I am encouraged by nature’s ability to heal itself. A hundred years ago what is now a thriving trout stream had been regularly polluted by hundred of barrels of crude oil that used to fall off the barges, so nature is resilient if given the time. Hence the thriving ant nests within the minor oil spill on the road.