This American Life: Game Changer

This episode of This American Life presents the issues surrounding natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

Click here to listen to the podcast.

Prologue.

Host Ira Glass tells the stories of two professors, each making a calculation that no one had made before. One gets acclaim. One ends up out of a job. The first, Terry Engelder, a geologist at Penn State, was estimating the amount of natural gas that's recoverable from the Marcellus shale, a giant rock formation that's under Pennsylvania and several other Eastern states. The second, Conrad "Dan" Volz, at the University of Pittsburg, estimated how much toxic crap—chemicals and pollution from gas exploration—might be getting into water supplies. (6 1/2 minutes)

Act One. You've Got Shale.

Producer Sarah Koenig continues the story Terry Engelder and Dan Volz, their rival calculations about natural gas in Pennsylvania, and how each was treated by his university. She explains how Pennsylvania's universities, politicans and industry have united to develop natural gas. Other states have been more cautious. (26 1/2 minutes)

Act Two. Ground War.

Sarah takes us to Mt. Pleasant, PA, where a gas exploration company called Range Resources has leased 95% of the township's land. This led to a standoff between Mt. Pleasant and Range, starting with zoning disputes and ending in a full scale PR war—a war in which the town was seriously outgunned. (23 1/2 minutes)

Marcellus Shale: How To Ruin a Perfectly Good Farm (Part Two)

Ron Gulla of Hickory, PA, tells about what is happening to him as a result of signing a gas lease with Range Resources. He has become an activist and advocate for others who are also victims of the gas industry like he is. Currently in court with Range Resources, Mr. Gulla has vowed to fight for his rights to the bitter end.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!

The New Snake Oil Salesmen: Natural Gas Lobbyists

PennFuture has published an article about natural gas lobbyists who have spent more than one million dollars lobbying the PA legislature so far this year.

The natural gas lobbyists - who have spent more than $1 million lobbying the Pennsylvania legislature so far this year to avoid a severance tax on Marcellus Shale gas drilling - have a lot in common with the snake oil sales reps of old. They are making spectacular claims about the benefits of gas drilling even as they poor-mouth about economic fragility of their industry. A look at the facts makes it clear that virtually none of the lobbyists' claims are true. Our message to state legislators - Buyer beware.

The gas industry is taking the approach that they are in a delicate position right now, being as they are in their infancy. A comment in the Philadelphia Inquirer reads:

If the natural gas industry is an infant, it was born with a silver spoon in its mouth.

The annual bonuses that the CEOs are getting really belies this argument. Cheasapeake Energy's CEO Aubrey K. McClendon got a compensation package last year of $112.5 million. Range Resources' CEO received $5 million. Atlas America's PA subsidiary paid Richard Weber nearly $2.5 million.

Claim: PA consumers will be hit with higher costs for natural gas. PennFuture says NO.
Claim: We (gas companies) already pay too much in taxes. PennFuture says NOT EXACTLY.
Claim: We're (gas companies) bringing jobs to PA. PennFuture says NO.

However, the drillers may successfully dodge the severance tax which is required in most gas producing states, and will also make "sweetheart" deals with the state to buy leases in PA state forests and parks. They will buy low now and make a killing later.

PennFuture says,

We weren't born yesterday. All of us should let the legislature and the governor (Rendell) know that this is a very bad deal all around.

Read PennFuture Facts Vol.11, No.19, here.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!
NO MORE HUGE BONUSES FOR GAS CEOS!

Waste from Marcellus Shale Drilling Kills Fish

Waste from Marcellus shale drilling in Cross Creek Park kills fish

Friday, June 05, 2009

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A leaking waste water pipe from a Range Resources Marcellus shale gas well drilled in Washington County's Cross Creek Park has polluted an unnamed tributary of Cross Creek Lake, killing fish, salamanders, crayfish and aquatic insect life in approximately three-quarters of a mile of the stream.

The state Department of Environmental Protection said Range Resources reported the May 26 waste water discharge from a coupling on a 6-inch pipe running from a recently drilled well to a waste water impoundment.

The DEP has taken water samples of the stream above and below the pollution release, said Helen Humphreys, a department spokeswoman, and, after those are evaluated, will determine the appropriate enforcement action.

The Range Resources has drilled three Marcellus shale deep gas wells in the 3,000 acre county-owned park.

Read more here.

DEMAND ACCOUNTABILITY!