Funding for this program provided by the Colcom Foundation.

Thank you.

This is the largest Nonconventional shale play anywhere in the world.

So it's not just.

Some little nuance down by Canonsburg.

This is a this is a big deal I think a Real problem with Marcellus Shale that a lot of people have had is that, you know.

They just came into this state, came into this Commonwealth, and started generating.

Huge amounts of waste without any clear plan of how to deal with it.

There have been countless state and federal studies that have looked at the practices of this industry.

And while there's always improvements, at the end of the day that ultimately determines that there are sound regulations and it's a safe practice.

People are talking about Marcellus Shale It's environmental.

This is a bird lover.

I thought that this would kind of take away from the birds from the area.

Some are even taking to the stage.

I just enjoy fouling up the industry's plans because I'm a dirty communist.

Learn from the mistakes and taking part in citizen deliberations.

It's being pushed on us.

and has been pushed on us, and we were never included in the conversation.

In the first place.

From concerned citizens to landowners, environmentalists, elected leaders and the industry.

They are the voices of southwestern Pennsylvania.

Part of the ongoing debate over managing Marcellus.

Hello.

I have a question about Marcellus shale drilling.

Can I talk to someone?

Hello.

I'm a paid spokesperson.

I'm up for reelection, and I am against Marcellus shale drilling.

And I'm just like you.

I don't know anything.

Is there someone else I can talk to?

No.

$1 billion industry.

One of the biggest energy finds of the century.

And a topic of much debate, disagreement and deliberation in the Pittsburgh region.

My name is David Byron.

I'm from Squirrel Hill.

As part of that deliberative process, a group of performers from the Unseam'd Shakespeare Company recently put on a play at WQED in an attempt to sort through the issues and stereotypes surrounding Marcellus Shale.

I drink toxic chemical waste for breakfast.

What's the harm if the wildlife drink it too?

Bring on the EPA violations All these transient workers screwing with my property values.

My new best friends.

I just enjoy fouling up the industry's plants because I'm a dirty communist.

Okay, this is Candid Camera, isn't it?

Who put you up to acting like this?

What about.

What?

Explain.

Well, this is how my concerned neighbors think I'll behave.

Anything for a buck.

Just acting like what all the industry execs want you to think about.

Ditto for me, except how all the environmentalist want you to think about me.

Tell me you haven't read a newspaper article that says I'm going to let the industry rape and pillage for the sake of the economy.

So you're all saying you've been misrepresented?

Absolutely After the performance, audience members participated in small group discussion.

So I think from a business perspective, you know, I do think it's it's happening, happening responsibly, which includes regulation and taxation and all those things that should go along with it.

It's being pushed on us and has been pushed on us, and we were never included in the conversation in the first place.

The group questioned panelist too and environmentalists and two county commissioners.

Who are the people with power making all the decisions about Marcellus Shale for us citizens?

How does the panel feel that the Marcellus shale debate might lead us to develop a process to attack similar issues in the future.

What is the reality you see of Marcellus in Pennsylvania, and what should we come to accept as a reality then?

According to Washington County Commissioner Bracken Burns.

The reality is that Marcellus Shale drillers are here to stay.

This is the largest non-conventional shale play anywhere in the world.

So it's not just some little nuance down by Canonsburg.

This is a big deal.

There's people getting rich, there's people getting jobs.

And then on the other side, there's people saying, no, this is all evil, and we need to bring it to a screeching halt as soon as possible.

Our children are going to all turn green and yada yada, yada.

Reality probably is somewhere in between those two extremes, but yes, it has caused a pretty significant action and reaction.

And so my job, as I see it, is to become educated, and I've spent hundreds of hours studying the Marcellus Shale play because it's a big deal in Washington County.

And I've been on panels and I've given speeches, but I'm not all for it.

I'm not all against it.

I like to think I'm somewhere educated in the middle.

How much water contamination?

But I think it's important to listen to the debate.

I mean, you can't have somebody come to you as an environmentalist and say, this is destroying the gene pool or the the rivers will never be the same.

You can't ignore that.

On the other hand, you'll hear people say, oh, this is going to create a million jobs.

Well, you know, that's probably a little extreme quarter of a million.

Yeah, that's possible and probable.

So there are the extremes on both sides.

And like his counterpart, the elected official in the play, you know, the industry has every right to be here.

And they are trying to do this as safely as possible.

They've complied with more regulation than any other state with natural gas drilling.

Bracken burns believes the industry has a right to operate in the state of Pennsylvania, and he believes they can operate safely.

One of the basic things that I think people need to understand is that the Marcellus Shale is about a mile deep.

Picture that, if you will, in your mind's eye, it's a way down here.

And you're drinking water is way up here.

And they don't really have much to do with each other, because there's about a mile of solid rock in between them.

Now, I know very well how far a mile is, and that's a real long distance.

And if you fill it with solid rock, the chances are that these two levels of are not communicating with each other.

Now that having been said, can they.

Absolutely.

If the shaft is not built the way it's supposed to be built, if somebody spills some crap on on the ground, it percolates down into the aquifer.

Absolutely.

But the industry has an obligation to do it the way it was designed.

And if it's done the way it's designed, most people would tell you that there is not going to be any contamination through a mile of solid rock.

On the other hand, the environmentalists and DEP and EPA and all the other players have an obligation to stand there and look over the shoulder of the guy that's drilling this well and making sure that he isn't taking any shortcuts.

There's another impact here, and I'm always kind of surprised that my friends in the environmental community don't quite get it.

And that is that natural gas is 60% cleaner burning than coal.

It's 30% cleaner burning than oil.

It's domestic, not foreign.

So when you use natural gas, you're reducing America's dependance on foreign oil, which is a good thing.

And yet all that anybody wants to talk about is, you know, some frack water in a fish pond or the vapors that are coming off of the well during the first three days.

I'm not saying we don't address those.

Absolutely.

But I'm looking at the bottom line and I'm thinking, aren't we further ahead to be using a domestic fuel source and reducing our dependance on foreign oil?

What am I missing here?

Bracken has also found himself involved in the debate over a tax on drilling.

The industry naturally says no thanks.

We'd rather not pay your severance tax.

Have a nice day.

Now, that having been said, every other state where they drill, they pay a severance tax.

So that starts to become a no brainer that they probably wouldn't pack up and go away.

If we required a severance tax.

Not far from downtown Washington, in the quiet town of Hickory.

Local artist Frank Hnat creates drawings of the wildlife that live on his property.

Recently, Frank entered into a leasing agreement with a natural gas drilling company.

It's an environmental risk.

It's a bird lover.

I thought that this would take away from the birds from the area right on my property here I have about 12 blue bird boxes, and I have feeders galore like birds galore.

And in fact, I have never seen more turkeys and pheasants there.

For a while I didn't, and I didn't see any pheasants at all.

They're coming back.

And also I've seen grouse now that they're coming back.

I did see a quail.

So, you know, all of this has coming back.

Frank's situation is similar to the landowner in the play who was considering a lease.

We wouldn't have to have a well on our property or anything.

You know, they spread out horizontally.

Well, that's what they would do on our place.

That's what's happening at Frank's place, too.

The actual well site is not on his property.

In our plot, where I am a lease holder.

There is like 600 acres.

What they've done is they put together a plot of land, and then there's x number of people that are in this plot.

Okay.

And then the what they call the land men they can be in and then sign you up for the royalties.

And, you know, the people were kind of hesitant at first, you know, with what are they going to do to our water?

What are they going to do to the air?

With all of this started after the testing.

Then they what they did was they started to bring in all of the gravel in separate to building roads, because there just a tremendous amount of trucks going to and from the site.

I mean, you have the sand trucks, you have water trucks, you have chemical trucks, and you have the workers that go, you know, in and out of this place.

So they started out with first getting to site, then building the Derrick, and everybody were just afraid that, you know, they were going to contaminate the soil and they were all upset.

In fact, my kids even told me, you know, you should get your water tested to make sure it's not contaminated at all.

I talked to a geologist, in fact, a real good friend of mine who's a geologist, and he says, Frank, don't worry about it.

Well water usually goes like a 100, 150ft.

They're digging down a mile and a half vertically.

Then I had all kinds of rumors, like they were going to put in four wells, three wells, two wells.

What It ended up they put in one well and eight laterals, which spreads east, west, north and south and etc.

and I have to say, everything worked to the teeth and the water is safe.

The atmosphere is safe.

Everything they did, they did to perfection.

I have the perfect well drinking water.

I have perfect pressure.

I've had that for all the years that I've been here.

The way Frank sees it, the farmers in his community have also reaped the benefits of Marcellus Shale.

They're building, you know, additional buildings that are fixed in their barns.

They're buying new tractors.

So it's been very, very helpful for the community.

I feel that in 5 to 10 years, you're going to see gas.

And we will, we will we will import very little oil.

Gas is here to stay.

It's like liquid gold.

I mean, there's gold in this planet.

And here, man, I'll tell you.

But not everyone shares, Frank H optimism.

My name is Patrick Grenter, I'm an attorney and legal director of Three Rivers Waterkeeper.

In the play, the environmentalist refers to a 2010 accident to make her case against drilling.

You want facts?

I'll give you a fact.

A well, blowout June 3rd Clearfield County spewed 35,000 gallons of wastewater.

Penn State Cooperative Extension has advised all nearby residents to get their well water tested, and run oil and gas company has been banned from further drilling in Pennsylvania pending an investigation.

Now, that is a fact.

Concerns over Marcellus Shale drilling are echoed by the real life local environmentalist.

Three Rivers Waterkeeper is an advocacy organization.

Our office is in homestead, but we really like to consider that River is our office.

You know, we spend as much time as we can on the Three Rivers to work, to monitor, improve and assess water quality.

I think a real problem with Marcellus Shale that a lot of people have had is that they just came into this state and started generating huge amounts of waste without any clear plan of how to deal with it.

And I think that a lot of people who lived here for a while remember this from previous industries, from coal, from timber, from steel.

There's been generations and legacies of environmental problems that we are still dealing with today, this industry, they came in like a barnstormer.

I mean, they were flying in and really started making a lot of money without any clear plan on how this all ends.

And in the meantime, Patrick worries about how a drilling practice known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is affecting local waterways.

Something that we really worry about, you know, and Waterkeeper is that there is a direct correlation between hydraulic fracturing and water, but you can't have one without the other.

And we've seen water management plans where these companies are permitted to, you know, withdraw hundreds of thousands of gallons of water each day.

So there's another side to this, where it's not just the discharge of pollutants into the rivers that concern us, it's the dewatering of streams.

So it's not just that bad stuff is getting poured in, it's that the good stuff is getting taken out, which really has a direct effect on water quality.

That is going to affect the temperature.

It's going to affect the wildlife habitats.

Everything is connected.

As an environmental attorney, Patrick sees his role as that of a watchdog, keeping an eye on companies that are drilling in Pennsylvania.

There's a lot of people who want this industry banned, and I understand that.

I think a lot of people feel that way.

But where I help, where I can be effective is to, you know, act as an attorney and act within the confines of the law.

And the Oil and Gas Act right now permits this activity.

I do think that there's a lot of room in our movement, in the environmental movement for people with different perspectives.

So I encourage those who want to seek a ban to do so.

But I also encourage other groups who want to potentially work within the confines of a permitting process to to do that, or even those who would want to work with the industry itself.

I mean, that's not something we do much, but I understand that there's other groups that do that, and I think there's room for all of that, so long as the end game is a cleaner and healthier Pennsylvania and cleaner and healthier Three Rivers.

And that's the work that we're passionate about right now in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

This is allowed.

It's permitted.

My job is to make sure that these permits are effective.

They're being followed and are, you know, totally encompassing, all the issues that are in play here.

What happens in these rivers is important.

The pollutants that go into these rivers are going to be in our drinking water, unless they're steps taken to protect against that.

And I think a lot of the work that we do is to try and realize that these rivers are a priceless resource for this region.

So what about that industry spokesperson in the play, like the others, he felt misrepresented.

You see, I'm not such a bad person.

I'm good at my job.

I care about doing this right, not just doing it.

Matt Pitzarella is the director of corporate communications and public affairs at Range Resources.

If we drove over these roads with a couple of hundred of our large trucks, it's clearly going to have a big impact.

And according to Matt, Pennsylvania drilling companies care about doing the job right to the very vast majority of companies want to do things the right way.

We've had some issues as an industry in Pennsylvania, and if it's another company or if it's range, we all tend to get painted with that same brush.

And I think that there is very much an acute awareness that we need to ensure that this is done responsibly.

We want an environment, and I believe that we have in Pennsylvania, where companies who go about their business, who do things the right way, can be permitted to conduct their business.

That's happening.

And then also for that fringe element or people that are repeat offenders, there's no place for them in Pennsylvania.

And we have a DEP in this state that has literally issued some of the highest fines in the history of the United States for onshore oil and gas development, for minor infractions.

That's a good thing.

It sets a very strict tone and it helps us.

Matt is well aware of how his industry is sometimes perceived.

Everyone here is from Texas and, nobody pays taxes in Pennsylvania for good or for bad.

That's a misconception about the industry.

But most of the people that work in this business are Pennsylvanians.

In fact, we have a concerted effort, not just because it's the right thing to do to hire locals, but we're in business, and it's in our financial best interest to have a local workforce.

I have to pay somebody a lot more money to uproot their family or to move back and forth.

So it behooves us to develop them locally and then the other people.

This is a worldwide resource, and it requires worldwide experts.

So we've been attracting, some of the top geoscientists and engineers from around the world that are relocating and moving to the Pittsburgh area, which I think is a great thing.

Matt sees growing acceptance of his industry in this region.

And poll after poll, I think Quinnipiac put out another poll this week.

It shows by a factor of 2 to 1.

People are very supportive of what we do, but people have concerns.

It's our responsibility to address those.

And as far as those concerns, Matt has a theory about where they originate.

One, when you think about oil and gas, all you think about is the price that you pay at the pump or the bill that you get to heat your home every month, those aren't necessarily good feelings that you get to begin with.

And then on top of that, you have an industry that has never really had to communicate with people.

In the past, we've operated in parts of the country where everyone's very familiar with the industry.

And let me give you a good example.

There a quarter of all the wells drilled in the United States of America have actually been drilled in Pennsylvania, but no one really noticed those 384,000 wells.

And now that it's this much higher profile, I think the industry was maybe a little slow in the early days of engaging people, explaining what this is and what it is.

And so as a result, we just have a little bit of work to do.

But I think it's I think it's sinking in.

People are smart, and when they have the facts, they tend to get very comfortable with what we do.

You know, the iconic image, for the oil and gas industry is a rig or a Derrick.

Right.

The Houston Oilers had it on their helmets for for many, many years.

Every brochure or website that you'd go to for an oil and gas company probably has drilling rigs all over it.

The reality is that drilling rigs there for about 2 or 3 months, it's very much a construction process.

There's some noise associated with it.

There's probably, dust, lights, truck traffic, that sort of thing.

We can manage a lot of those issues, but there's clearly those impacts are out there.

But it is temporary when we're finished, the footprint is much, much smaller and it produces gas for for many, many decades.

What Matt is saying is that this is the before and this is the after.

We think that it is a fair trade off because we can develop one square mile of natural gas from basically the size of, half acre property when we're all finished.

So from a surface use impact, natural gas is probably the most efficient means of energy production in the world.

But when you see the Derrick in your backyard or at your neighbor's farm, you think that it's going to be there forever and again.

In time, more and more people have seen that that's a temporary inconvenience.

And as far as fears over fracking, fracking has been around for 60 years.

It's been applied more than a million times in the United States of America and hundreds of thousands of times in Pennsylvania.

What that is, is you've now drilled it horizontally, and then you pump water and sand into that shale formation.

Water's incompressible.

So if I put enough pressure behind water, it can crack through anything in this place.

It puts thousands of, fractures into that rock that are about the width of a sheet of paper.

And the sand stops those cracks from closing.

As a result, the gas is able to flow out.

This same this exact same kind of technology has been used over the last 30 years in Texas in a formation called the Barnett Shale, 30,000 wells within a 50 mile radius of the city of Fort Worth, with a very good track record with very minimal environmental impacts, and it has had a lasting positive impact on their economy.

In fact, air quality overall has improved in Texas because they've burned more of that natural gas and electric generation.

We will end up in the same place in Pennsylvania.

There have been countless state and federal studies that have looked at the practices of this industry.

And while there's always improvements, at the end of the day that ultimately determines that there are sound regulations and it's a safe practice, we encourage additional study if it takes new studies, more recent studies, a different look, that's a good thing, because that's going to allow everyone to be more comfortable with the process.

At the same time, maybe we find out a new way to do things this year alone.

This is an industry that will generate an additional billion dollars in tax revenues for Pennsylvania, will reduce energy prices by more than $300 million for consumers in energy prices.

And we create a lot of jobs.

At the end of the play, the group finds common ground.

This is about managing Marcellus Shale drilling, pure and simple.

No, this is about managing relationships, about how I relate to you and how you relate to him and to her, and how we can't just parse this issue up into separate pieces and work separately.

This is about models of interaction, building relationships.

And in the Pittsburgh region, can local landowners elected leaders, environmentalists and drilling companies work together too?

I think in general, we're getting there.

We're working this opportunity.

We have the regulators on the other side watching it to make sure that it's done properly.

The regulations are being tweaked and tightened on a regular basis.

That's the way the system works.

But, you know, like New York said, well, we're going to sit back and think about it for the next 5 or 10 years.

Well, I'm happy for them, but I don't think when you're in the middle of this kind of an opportunity that you stop and think about it for ten years and hope like hell that the train doesn't pass you by, all this thing is going on.

It is helping jobs.

You talk about jobs needed.

It's all right here.

Give them a chance.

Let them drill and there'll be more jobs.

I hope that there is room for everybody here.

I hope that the Marcellus Shale extraction operators can find a way to do this at a safe and not impactful for the communities that they're in.

Without healthy, vibrant rivers, Pittsburgh cannot be healthy and vibrant.

There's a direct correlation between the quality of our water and the quality of our lives in this region.

I grew up not far from here, in an area where I thought it was normal that Chartiers Creek was orange when I was a child.

Okay, that's not acceptable to me, and that's not acceptable for anyone that works in this industry.

What we have is 100 years of history and lessons to reflect upon, to ensure that when we develop this resource, that it's done responsibly.

So at the end of the day, if our attitude is there's challenges, let's not do it.

That's unacceptable to me.

There's challenges.

Let's succeed them and everybody can benefit in the long run as a result of that.

Funding for this program provided by the Colcom Foundation.

Thank you.