Most of us stumble through life never knowing how oil or gas or mining works. That’s fine — right up till we’re facing drilling or mining in our own backyard, or we want to take a stand on it. There’s a lot of fear about the process, which is completely justified — a lot can go hideously wrong. There’s a lot of stuff we need to learn fast about how gas or oil are drilled or the process of mining.
So that the people in the Marcellus gas area can get more technical information about what is happening around and to them, the Penn State College of Agricultural Resources and its outreach arm, the Cooperative Extension, are running a new series of monthly webinars, designed to address questions that those leasing their land will have (i.e. what to expect after you sign a lease, money issues, etc), concerns of the general public (i.e. is underground injection disposal of the gas wastewater a good idea? What effect will this have on the local economy? How will this affect the forests?) and local government (zoning, land use, regulation, water etc). The first webinar is December 17th.
These webinars (and other outreach done by Penn State’s science and agriculture departments) have been immensely helpful to those seeking to drill, but who want to avoid the environmental catastrophes of those who blithely signed without doing their homework.
(Newspapers throughout the Northeast for months have been reporting the problems of Dimock, Pennsylvania, which was the site of serious water contamination to several local homes (which signed without decent leases), possibly through a drilling mistake, a shallower gas layer, or through contact with an long-lost, unmarked wellbore (of which there are thousands in every state). There have also been fluid spills on land by the industry giant, Cabot.)
The material and information on the website is technical but not too difficult. There is a slightly pro-drilling philosophy to the undertaking, since the sources are geologists and others who believe their processes can be safe when done properly. But it is an excellent primer on the drilling process itself.
Such information could and should be made available though extensive public outreach in every drilling situation. No, it doesn’t address a lot of what can go wrong and that is absolutely crucial too. But locals should have the right to make informed decisions about drilling (and mining) and understanding the process is essential.
If this sort of outreach was done in all emerging energy and mining sites, it would make a huge difference in how the public responded to these project — and not just in America. People would have the information on risks to the environment, on the different options they have, on what they can do to protect themselves, and an understanding of the project’s economic impact, positive and negative, on them. Those interested in leasing would know the pitfalls; those against it would be able to make better arguments or at least mitigate its potential harm.
(For more on the webinars, past and present, visit Penn State’s Natural Gas Impacts http://naturalgas.extension.psu.edu/ )
