Fracking panel: Individuals, communities lack control over wells

NEW WILMINGTON, PA.

The bottom-line message from a panel on fracking: Learn all you can about this controversial way to draw natural gas from a deep-rock formation called the Marcellus Shale.

Five experts — on fracking, property leases, legislation, the environment and public health — spoke to a large crowd at New Wilmington High School Wednesday evening.

Western Pennsylvania sits atop the Marcellus. Gas companies want access to the shale. There’s money to be made by the many landowners who are leasing property to the companies.

They’re getting signing bonuses, and there will be royalties from gas-producing wells. Some will be millionaires, but even those with only a couple of acres can make an easy few thousand dollars.

Is the money worth environmental and public-health risks? Even property owners who welcome leasing may be in for unpleasant surprises if they aren’t careful about what’s in those contracts, panelists said.

And those who believe regulators and legislators will look out for them and the environment might be expecting too much.

A lack of control for individuals and communities is also a chilling effect of weak state and federal regulation, said Jill Kriesky of the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, and Douglas Shields, a former Pittsburgh city councilman who helped ban fracking there.

Fracking is exempt from regulation under the federal Energy Act, Shields pointed out, and a new Pennsylvania law exempts gas companies from having to follow local zoning laws.

He and Kriesky said doctors who treat patients exposed to fracking chemicals have to sign confidentiality agreements.

“Even the patient can’t know what’s wrong,” Shields said.

For the full story, read Friday's Vindicator or Vindy.com.