LOUIE TODAY: The dark side of Marcellus shale; Skolnick on politics; Phantoms

Louie, Vindy.com's news radio partner, will interview award-winning journalist Seamus McGraw about his book on the Marcellus shale gas deposits.

Pennsylvania's Susquehanna County, in the rocky, remote northeastern corner of the state, is a community of stoic, low-income dairy farmers — many of them third- and fourth-generation — and homesteaders seeking a haven from suburban sprawl. But it's also home to one of the richest natural gas deposits the world has ever known. The Marcellus shale is worth more than one trillion dollars, with enough gas to fuel every home in America for a generation.

McGraw's "The End of Country" is a compelling story about the battle for control that ensued after the discovery of the Marcellus gas deposits. The conflict pitted the forces of corporate America against a band of locals determined to extract their fair share of the windfall — but not at the cost of their values or their way of life. Many couldn't resist the offer to lease their land in exchange for the promise of untold riches.

For years, this part of the world was invisible to all but the farmers, urban transplants, and small landholders who called it home. But McGraw, a native of the region whose own mother was one of the first to receive a leasing offer, opens a window on a stiff-necked group of Pennsylvanians as they try, with little guidance or protection from the state or anyone else, to balance the promise and the peril of this discovery.

McGraw suggests that the cutthroat dash by petrodollar billionaires to secure drilling leases will make some poor residents rich, and put the entire community at risk of having its land tainted by toxic chemicals and its water supply contaminated by gas. Above all, it will test the character of everyone in the community as they fight against the end of country. It is a tale of greed, hubris, and envy, but also of hope and family and the land that binds them all together.

McGraw has been published in Playboy, Reader's Digest, Penthouse, Radar, Spin, and The Forward. He grew up pitching hay and spreading manure on the same fields the gas companies are now prospecting. He currently is working on a documentary trailer about his family's experiences with the Marcellus shale. .

Also, The Vindicator's David Skolnick will dish on Mahoning Valley politics, and filmmaker Eric Murphy will give an update on his film, "Traficant: The Congressman of Crimetown.

Then get ready for Phantoms Hockey this weekend at the Covelli Centre with

Phantoms sales guru Brian Wojtowicz and Covelli Centre Executive Director Eric Ryan.