Fracking: The Great Uniter?

On the surface, the Marcellus Shale natural gas boom is the classic free market success story. The kind that rank and file Republicans unite behind. 

The typical GOP mindset would tell us that the market allowed Halliburton to create the technology and the government should not regulate how this technology is used. 

The industry is exempt from the 2005 Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) and the Clean Water Act.  Aside from the obvious Halliburton/Vice President Cheney connection, this loophole fits the GOP’s traditional stance on domestic energy. 

Who will ever forget “drill, baby drill”? 

The politics behind the sentiment are simple- jobs, less dependency on foreign oil and an increase in national security. This is all great, unless of course you are a fisherman in  Louisiana or have poisonous tap water in Pennsylvania. 

Party history is one reason that the natural gas industry contributed millions of dollars to Pennsylvania Republican candidates in 2010. 

Pennsylvania is funny state politically. We have the “T”. Pittsburgh and Philadelphia traditionally go Democrat while the rest of the state, in the shape of a “T”, goes Republican. 

This trend held in the last three Presidential elections. The Democrats only won 25% of the counties in each of the elections, but that candidate won the state each time. The counties where most of the fracking is happening typically went Republican.

Interestingly enough, Washington County never went for President Bush and did not go for President Obama either. I guess if you want to be President, you don’t want to win Washington County. 

What Unites is Stronger than What Divides

So what does all of this energy history and political geography have to do with uniting us? Let me tell you. 

I was watching Gasland the other day and I kept thinking about the political leanings of all the people affected by drilling in the film. Just about everywhere Josh Fox went was rural. Rural Wyoming. Rural Colorado. Rural Pennsylvania. All typical Republican strongholds. 

Guess what? These folks weren’t singing the praises of energy independence. They weren’t telling government to get off their property. Instead they were wondering where their government was and they were cursing the “liars” who “raped” their land because of greed. 

Air and water. We need it. We can’t live without it. We the people are tired of corporate interests destroying these lifelines in order to the line their pockets. 

We are not fooled by their smokescreens of being safer from terrorists and promises of new jobs. We know why they want this gas and we are beginning to see what they are willing to do to get it. 

To really understand the potential for uniting that this topic has, check out this extraordinary letter written by The Association of Pittsburgh Priests.

Progressives and priests. Evangelicals and environmentalists. Hippies and good old boys. Politically, these groups may not see eye to eye very often, but they all need air and water. Even more that that, beneath the surface, the belief that we should leave the planet inhabitable for our children and grandchildren. 

Who knows, one day we may have to thank the natural gas industry for uniting our country. 

Hickory, PA

Called the epicenter of MS gas, this is just a piece of Hickory's story....more to come

The Money Trail: The Texas Connection

Just over half (21 of 40) of the Marcellus Shale Coalition's members are Texas based companies. With natural gas pollution in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area equalling that of pollution caused by vehicles, the time has come to time to take the business out of their backyards.

Total campaign contributions from Marcellus Shale interests out of Texas for 2010 was just under $550,000. Here are the details (alphabetized by recipient):

The Money Trail: Tom Corbett in 2010

In the Pennsylvania gubernatorial campaign, then candidate Tom Corbett was labeled "Toxic Tom" by critics of his close ties with the natural gas industry. Candidate Corbett received approximately 270 Marcellus Shale related campaign contributions totaling $1,169, 546.41 


Big money buying influence in a state without limits. 

Follow the trail here:

The Money Trail

In the next series of posts, I will look at the amount of money dumped on Pennsylvania politicians by the natural gas industry over the past few years. In a state where there are no limits to political contributions, the numbers are staggering.

Along with posting totals, I will be posting the seemingly endless list of individual contributions made by the industry to various politicians. This will take up a lot of your screen and will require extensive scrolling, but I feel this visual is critical to understanding what the communities of Western Pennsylvania are up against. In American politics money buys influence and Western Pennsylvania has been inundated by some of the premiere heavyweight influence procurement specialists.

The Road Most Traveled

When Ravenna Swetts, 72, and Marguerite Swetts, 84, both of Perryopolis, PA drove down state route 119 in East Huntingdon around lunch time this past October, they couldn’t have imagined being rear ended in broad daylight by the triaxle truck that took their lives. 

There is a lot of previously unimagined truck traffic on state, federal and local roads in Western Pennsylvania these days. Traffic that wasn’t here prior to the Marcellus Shale rush. 

The truck that hit the two women was carrying a load of sand to a drill site. Convoys on state routes, oversized loads on rural roads and speeding tanker trucks are now a common and frightening sight in our region. 

Rural roads are susceptible to the most dangerous scenarios. According to the Department of Transportation, 27% of fatal vehicle crashes in Pennsylvania in 2009 occurred while negotiating a curve. With so many big trucks traveling our back roads, our communities are at risk. 

Quality of Life

The dramatic increase in driving danger, traffic and deterioration of roadways are not the public health hazards that air and water pollution are. However, the truck traffic that drilling brings further detracts from the quality of life in our region. 

The truck convoys that I have witnessed remind me of similar convoys I saw on a trip to Dubai in 2008. The traffic there was a nightmare, most of which was caused by trucks used in the city’s non-stop construction at the time.

I talked to some locals about it and they started off raving about their city, but ultimately concluded that the traffic and the danger associated with it takes away from their quality of life. I am starting to understand how they felt. 

If Western Pennsylvania is the “Saudi Arabia of natural gas” as some politicians tout it, this traffic is only going to increase and so are the dangers associated with it. But, our safety and quality of life are not the only concerns this increase in traffic brings. 

Funding Our Infrastructure 

Who is going to pay for this? According to Marcellus-Shale.us, municipalities require bonds on roads that industry uses for repairs and upkeep. But, what is to stop drillers from changing their routes to avoid paying these bonds? Furthermore, there is nothing in place for state and federal government to secure bonds from companies using these roads. 

Once again the natural gas industry is guilty of shortsightedness. The promises of increased property value and new sustainable jobs have not come to fruition. Fracking is proving to be a dirtier business than anyone could have imagined and our health is paying the price. Now, the insurgence of out of state trucks is making our roads unsafe while accelerating the destruction of our infrastructure. 

Government Help

Today Pennsylvania legislators are trying once again to pass a severance tax on the gas being pumped from the Marcellus Shale. One-third of the proposed tax revenue would go to the counties and municipalities where the drilling is being done. If we have to have the drilling (and it’s not going away just yet) this appears to be a sensible way to fund the fixing of our roads. 

Unfortunately, the Republican leadership is opposed to a severance tax on drillers. This isn’t a party issue- heavily Republican Alaska and Texas both have severance taxes, as does every other state that has natural gas drilling.

As frustrating as everything surrounding drilling is, there is beauty in the fight. This is one issue that unites the majority of us. This is our water, our air, our roads and our future. Partisan politics be damned. 

The Source of The Tax Refusal?

In upcoming posts, I will take a look at a possible reason why state politicians refuse to tax the take, take, take natural gas industry the way they should. Could money be involved? Stay tuned. 

NTC Consultants has estimated the required truck trips per well over the 2 phases requiring transportation: Drilling Rig Mobilization, Site Preparation and Demobilization Drill Pad and Road Construction Equipment 10 – 45 Truckloads Drilling Rig 30 Truckloads Drilling Fluid and Materials 25 – 50 Truckloads Drilling Equipment (casing, drill pipe, etc.) 25 – 50 Truckloads Completion Rig Mobilization and Demobilization Completion Rig 15 Truckloads Well Completion Completion Fluid and Materials 10 - 20 Truckloads Completion Equipment (pipe, wellhead) 5 Truckloads Hydraulic Fracture Equipment (pump trucks, tanks) 150 - 200 Truckloads Hydraulic Fracture Water 400 - 600 Tanker Trucks Hydraulic Fracture Sand 20 - 25 Trucks Flow Back Water Removal 200 - 300 Truckloads Well Production Production Equipment 5 – 10 Truckloads Source: www.marcellus-shale.us