Not in their backyards
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Elizabeth Schneider, of Lincoln Place, where Marcellus Shale drilling is being proposed, listens to speakers at City Councilman Doug Shields' post-agenda meeting in City Council chambers Monday afternoon.
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The potential for Marcellus Shale drilling within the city of Pittsburgh brought out a panel of experts and about 80 people who filled City Council chambers Monday for a hearing on the impact gas drilling could have here.
Chuck Christen of the University of Pittsburgh Center for Healthy Environments and Communities, cited a list of environmental and health concerns, saying: "There is not enough independent research. All my questions are ones for which there are no answers."
Gas drilling is heaviest in Greene and Washington counties to the south and Tioga and Kane counties in the northern tier, but leasing agents have been knocking on doors in Pittsburgh.
Nadia Steinzor, a Marcellus regional organizer for Earthworks, an environmental organization that focuses on the impact of extraction industries, said people were signing leases without legal representation, often not knowing whether they are signing away their surface and mineral rights and sometimes not knowing where their property lines are.
State law restricts deep well drilling to no closer than 200 feet from an occupied building, but in densely populated Lawrenceville, the majority of at least 57 parcels are under agreement, Councilman Patrick Dowd wrote in an earlier e-mail to the Post-Gazette. Councilman Doug Shields said people also had been approached in his district.
Kathryn Klaber, president and executive director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition of gas drilling interests, said she did not know how those leases might be used. When Mr. Shields asked her if her partners wanted to drill within the city, she said, "I don't think they've made that decision."
She said 99.5 percent of the liquid that is pumped thousands of feet underground to fracture shale is water and that gas drilling uses far less water than any other fuel-extraction industry. She said many companies were reusing for future wells the water that comes back up.
A small percentage of that liquid is "very toxic and dangerous chemicals," said Ms. Steinzor.
State Rep. David Levdansky, D-Forward, a member of the Energy and Environmental Resources Committee, said Marcellus drilling presented "an opportunity and a challenge" for Pittsburgh.
"If done correctly, it can promote economic development and tens of thousands of jobs and an opportunity for energy independence" -- enough gas in Pennsylvania "to serve the northeast corridor for the next 20 to 30 years." He said another upside was that gas is "a relatively cleaner burning fuel" than coal.
First Published July 13, 2010 12:00 am
