The Endicott Enquirer News from the Southern Tier

Drilling the Marcellus Shale – How to do it Right?

Lately there has been a lot of talk in the Southern Tier about drilling the Marcellus Shale and the economic and environmental impacts on the region. Those with land on the Shale have been quick to cash in and sell their mineral rights but that becomes particularly problematic for folks that still have to live on their property next to what has become a natural gas field. How can the area sustain the economic growth that the Shale promises while maintaining way of life that many have come to expect living in the area.

There is no doubt that the drilling of the shale is needed in the region to stabilize the economic downturn that has been happening in the Southern Tier ever since IBM decided to pull out the majority of their operations in the early 1990's. This find could inject millions or even billions into an area that had not seen this kind of investment in decades for any reason. But what is the cost of the drilling? Neighbors will be fighting over whether or not to allow drilling on their property, the environmental impact could be enormous and the workers the drilling brings in are going to be a different type of people than the community has seen before. All of these things have the potential to aggravate an already volatile situation that is forming since the discovery of this extremely large natural gas pocket.

Land owners now also must carefully consider their mineral rights when purchasing land too. The last thing a new home owner wants to find out is that they were not sold the mineral rights to the land their house now sits on. This is an unfortuante new reality that all new potential homeowners must consider when commercial entities have a vested interest in the mineral rights to much of the land in the area.

I don't have the answers to these questions, but I think it merits further discussion within the community and I hope these new realities are fully explored less we head down a path that is bad for the community as a whole.

Links about the Shale:

Wikipedia Article

PennLive News Article

New York State Departmental of Environmental Conservation