Diametrically opposed viewpoints on the Marcellus Shale boom competed for attention Tuesday with Pittsburgh City Councilman Doug Shields seeking a citywide ban on natural gas drilling and former Gov. Tom Ridge hailing the industry's "transformative opportunity" for Pennsylvania.

Despite questions about the legality of a ban, Mr. Shields unveiled a bill that would prohibit gas extraction anywhere in the city, even if drilling companies have already acquired leases from property owners. Speaking at a morning news conference at the City-County Building, Mr. Shields said drilling hearkened a return to Pittsburgh's polluted industrial past.

"You want that back?" he said.

Hours later, in his new role as strategic adviser to an industry group, Mr. Ridge told an energy conference at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center that Marcellus Shale was one of the state's great natural gifts.

"I think this is potentially a transformative opportunity for our state," he said, still dressed in the jeans and checkered shirt he wore while inspecting drilling operations in Washington County earlier in the day. While in the field, he said, he encountered dozens of local residents put to work by the industry.

Mr. Ridge cited a need to address environmental challenges and fears about the industry, even though he said some of the latter amounted to "mythology." He said hard lessons learned from the coal and timbering industries, in Pennsylvania and other states, should guide the industry's stewardship of land and waterways.

"We're only getting one chance to get it right," he said.

Last month, Mr. Ridge and his two consulting firms received a one-year, $900,000 contract to serve as strategic advisers to the Marcellus Shale Coalition, a Cecil-based trade group. However, the former two-term governor said he was approaching the job with the interests of his former constituents in mind.

Mr. Ridge delivered a five-minute address to the Energy Inc. conference, sponsored by the Pittsburgh Business Times.

Speaking to reporters before and after his speech, he said natural gas was a potential export for Pennsylvania and could provide low-cost fuel to the glass, pharmaceutical and other industries. There's also a national security interest, the former homeland security secretary said, noting he'd rather produce gas here than buy it overseas.

He said he opposed a one-year moratorium on new drilling statewide that's been proposed by state Sen. Jim Ferlo, D-Highland Park. Mr. Ferlo proposed the moratorium to give officials time to ponder tighter regulations of the industry. But Mr. Ridge said the concerns could be addressed without the delay.

Mr. Ridge said the state should control drilling because gas can't be fully leveraged if extraction policies differ from municipality to municipality. He said he hoped Mr. Shields' call for a city ban would be the "first chapter in a broader discussion" about the industry's future here.

But the councilman was in no mood for compromise.

Mr. Shields described drillers as "quick-buck artists"; criticized their "paid mouthpieces," including Mr. Ridge; and said the city wouldn't be treated like a "colony" of a state government that puts the drilling industry's interests ahead of the people's. He also lashed out at Mayor Luke Ravenstahl, who opposes a citywide ban because of the economic development potential of gas extraction.

"I understand every government is strapped for cash, but that's not a reason to degrade the quality of life in our city and in our neighborhoods," he said.

On Monday, University of Pittsburgh researchers reported a flurry of leasing activity in portions of Allegheny County as leasers from drilling companies locked up land for future production. About 7 percent of the county's land area, or about 35,400 acres, has been leased since 2003.

Only 1 percent of the city's land area, or about 360 acres, is under lease. Although the Marcellus Shale Coalition says no drilling in the city is imminent, Mr. Shields said the land agents weren't busy for nothing.

He said Calvary Cemetery in the East End was leased to a drilling company and asked, "What does the community have to say about that?" Cemetery officials couldn't be reached for comment.

Mr. Shields' bill was crafted with the help of Ben Price, projects director for the Franklin County-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund.

Mr. Shields said he knew a ban would invite a legal challenge from the coalition, but that he believed that it was important for the city to assert its power to protect residents from a potentially harmful industry.

"I want to have this discussion," Mr. Shields said, dismissing the notion that state law on gas extraction doesn't allow for a locally adopted ban.

He said he believed that his bill had a real shot at becoming city law, in part because of what he called growing public opposition to drilling. Politicians, he said, know how to read the writing on the wall.

The news conference attracted a half-dozen drilling opponents, including Point Breeze resident Mel Packer, who said the long-term effects of drilling pollution were unknown. "I'm not going to be their lab rat," he said.

The city has come too far from its steel-industry days, Mr. Shields said, to risk the water pollution and other hazards of gas drilling. "Hazelwood is not available for additional environmental degradation," he said, referring to one neighborhood still trying to put its industrial past behind it.

At the same time as Mr. Shields' news conference, the state Department of Environmental Protection announced a $97,350 fine against Atlas Resources LLC for allowing hydraulic fracturing fluids to overflow a wastewater pit and contaminate "a high-quality watershed" in Washington County. The wastewater spilled into a Hopewell tributary off Dunkle Run on Dec. 5 and 6.

Company officials could not be reached for comment.

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