For most people their home is their largest investment, their nest egg.

At a recent meeting of Marcellus Outreach Butler, the presenter discussed property values in the area.  A member of the audience, who identified himself as working in “investment business,” raised his voice over the speaker and made a sales pitch.  He offered anyone there “more than what you would have gotten five years ago” for “vacant land.”  When asked if his offer would still stand if the land came without mineral rights his answer was emphatically, “No”.  Therein lies the problem. 

By signing a lease, you are giving up the long-term value of your property for a onetime payout. Investors are paying more for land right now because they want what is underneath; they are not interested in what happens to the land or the people that live on it.

Those that wish to profit from our land, have little need for us.  Our concerns, our families, our health and safety and our outdoor heritage don’t figure into their bottom line.  The individual at this meeting was offering to buy up family owned land, sell off the rights for the gas, and discard the surface like an eggshell.  And he’s not alone.  There are many that wish to sell the land out from under our children’s feet for their profit and then walk away leaving our community “fractured”.

According to new data, 7 million acres or 25% of Pennsylvania has been leased for oil and gas development including 40% of our publicly owned State Forests.  What will we be leaving our children when they are done with this shell game?

j.b.

House Bill 1950, sponsored by Brian Ellis and Mary Jo White from Butler County, recently passed by the State Legislature, fails the people of PA miserably.  Governor Corbett and all the state legislators,  who voted for this bill, have given a huge gift to the gas industry.  The reasons for saying this are contained in what this bill does and does not do.

1.  This bill does unprecedented harm to the ability of local governments to protect their citizens and communities by eliminating local control of zoning of this industry as set forth the Municipalities Planning Code. Consequently, drilling, laying of pipeline and the building of compression stations and gas processing plants will essentially be permitted anywhere, including residential areas.
2. To add insult to injury, the bill also takes away the legal right for any municipality to challenge a permit decision by the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) that the local government believes is not in the best interest of its community.
3. The law is written so that the Public Utility Commission (PUC), which has little expertise in zoning matters, will be given the authority to invalidate local zoning ordinances that seek to restrict drilling.
4. The bill allows DEP to grant drilling permits when the gas drilling company is in violation of laws elsewhere in the state. Almost every other statute administered by DEP requires DEP to deny permits if the applicant has unresolved violations of law elsewhere in the state.
5. The bill requires drillers only to replace, not clean up, private and public water supplies they contaminate. So if the gas drillers pollute a water supply under HB 1950, they only need to bring in the water buffalo or other replacement water, not clean up the mess.  (Based on what happened in Dimock, PA, these water buffaloes are eventually removed by the gas drillers, leaving people to fend for themselves.)

It is obvious to me that this bill was written mostly by the industry.  The most unbelievable part is verbiage on p. 99 of the bill that prevents doctors from revealing the chemicals for which they are treating patients from drilling areas.  This indicates that the industry knows that substances they are using are a threat to public health.  Isn’t it a violation of human and civil rights for residents to not be warned if they are being exposed to hazardous chemicals that are making others seriously ill?

Although HB 1950 will soon be law, our worst response would be to accept this egregious violation of our rights to protect our communities and our health and remain silent.  Speak out, get involved and let your representatives know your concerns.

d.a.

_The letter, “Allow industry to thrive,” in the Feb. 10 Butler Eagle, could easily have been “copied and pasted” from a gas industry website. So much for “original thought” from an industry where “spin” is king.

The letter opines: “State policymakers need to keep in mind the destructive consequences of placing unreasonable regulations on this industry.” This statement begs the questions “What is reasonable?” and “Destructive consequences for what and whom?” Reasonable for/destructive to the gas industry? Or reasonable for/destructive to public health and safety and the environment?

The letter further states: “When done correctly, natural gas drilling poses no threat to human health or the environment.” Yes, but what about all the times when it is NOT done correctly? Even the most casual research reveals too many of these “incorrect” incidents to be deemed “reasonable” or acceptable. And just because the industry “doesn't accept responsibility” for these incidents does not mean that it is in truth not responsible for them.

The letter speaks of the need for “reasonable regulations,” yet the federal panel investigating shale gas drilling states in its report that current state and federal regulations may well be insufficient for protecting the public and the environment from the hazards of drilling. Meanwhile, the gas industry decries these same current regulations as being “too much red tape.”

And of course the letter mentions the “thousands of jobs” created by the gas industry. While job creation is undeniable, most reports agree that the number of shalefield jobs created has been exaggerated by the industry. One could also ask: “Jobs at what cost?” At the cost of state residents' health, plummeting property values and massive degradation of the environment? There would be an avalanche of job opportunities for women (and men, too) if a certain “industry” were to be legalized in Pennsylvania, but would that make it right? Are we that desperate in these “tough times” that we will do anything for jobs and money?

The economic benefits of shale gas drilling need to be weighed in an unbiased manner against the multitude of very real hazards, risks and liabilities associated with this development, industry denials notwithstanding. Regulations need to be based on a realistic assessment of those hazards, not on the corporate bottom line and the demands of leaseholders. And if said hazards are deemed to be beyond adequate regulation, the industry needs to be shut down until it can be proven safe enough to resume. This industry is not “too big to fail.” Believe it or not, we could survive such a shutdown. In fact, by some estimates, we might survive better with a shutdown than without one.

j.p.m.