Shale drilling is big business, but for many, the effects are small
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Chartiers Supervisor Harlan Shober at the MarkWest gas processing plant in the township.
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Plenty of southwestern Pennsylvanians view Marcellus Shale as a driving economic engine of the region's future.
"We're just scratching the tip of the iceberg," said Donora manager Dennis Fisher. "These wells are going to produce for the next 45 to 50 years, and the economic impact is going to be tremendous."
But who exactly will reap the rewards?
A Pittsburgh Post-Gazette survey of municipalities in the Marcellus hotbed of Washington County reveals a scattered economic boon produced by the advent of drilling rigs, compressor stations, pipeline networks and processing plants.
Many residents have benefited directly; many more have not.
To be sure, the state overall has gotten wealthier through the influx of Marcellus Shale-related tax revenues.
On a local level, landowners leasing mineral rights throughout the county have pocketed tidy sums. A variety of small businesses have thrived. Jobs have been created. Some municipalities have raked in the cash through clever use of special fees on the drilling industry. And Canonsburg's Southpointe office park has blossomed with tenants related to the natural gas industry.
By and large, though, those direct impacts are limited.
No hard numbers exist detailing how many people have leased their mineral rights. But Range Resources, the area's biggest player, said that since 2008, it has made about $800 million in upfront payments to more than 10,000 landowners in Washington County, which averages out to $80,000 per leaseholder.
That amounts to perhaps 5 percent of the county's 207,000 residents.
Range estimates that this year it has already paid out another $75 million in royalties.
"That $75 million is pretty much all in Washington County and paid to a relatively small number of households, when compared to the entire county," Range spokesman Matt Pitzarella said.
Officials from a number of the county's 66 boroughs, cities and townships report little or no economic impact or improvement in quality of life for their residents and communities as a result of Marcellus activity, with one general exception: better roads -- repaved by the companies that ruined them in the first place.
In some locales, drilling has not yet occurred; in others it likely never will. In more urban areas, there are few landowners with large tracts to lease.
"It hasn't been any impact so far," said Supervisor Robert Mercante of West Bethlehem, which is home to a handful of well pads on private property. "The ones that benefit are the property owners where the well sites are. No one else has benefited that I know of."
Mr. Mercante did note that West Bethlehem earned $19,000 this year in permit fees for companies running natural gas pipelines across roads. That's about 6 percent of the township's $300,000 budget, which is already hamstrung by earmarking up to a third each year for road repaving.
Mr. Pitzarella points to the combination of higher tax revenues, job creation and lower, predictable energy prices as "a strong enough argument that all Pennsylvanians are already benefiting. We're not going to be the economic silver bullet for Pennsylvania, but we are playing a major role and will for several generations."
First Published July 3, 2011 12:00 am
