There are many challenges to extracting natural gas safely and not destroying our waters and the scenic value of Pennsylvania’s beautiful hiking trails.
The Marcellus Shale lying 6,000 feet beneath many Pennsylvania hiking trails could become the most productive natural gas field in the U.S., capable of supplying the entire country’s needs for up to 20 years. Pennsylvania could become the Saudi Arabia of natural gas. The gas drillers are confident that their methods to extract the gas are safe and that they can reclaim the land after the drilling is completed. Others are not so sure. Pennsylvania has had previous experience with natural resource companies that have left our state’s waters and lands heavily polluted and barren. Over 100 years ago the state was forced to buy and restore great tracts of land that had been destroyed.
Since gas drillers will have a substantial impact on the landscape of Pennsylvania the Keystone Trails Association is advocating that as good corporate citizens they should pay their fair share of the costs all commonwealth citizens bear to live and work in Pennsylvania.
Gas drillers in Texas have paid a severance tax on the extraction of natural gas of between $1.4 billion and $2.7 billion annually for the last five years. In aggregate they have paid over $10 billion in the last five years.
Pennsylvania needs a severance tax similar to Texas’s to pay for the downstream costs associated with gas drilling and the impact on our land and water supplies. New York State is so concerned with the risks associated with gas drilling to its drinking water that gas drilling has been banned. Consequently energy companies in New York State are now focusing their efforts on Pennsylvania.
Some gas drilling lobbyists will tell you that a severance tax will kill the infant industry. ExxonMobil’s recent purchase of one of the infant companies for $31 billion suggests a far different fate for the infant industry. The gas industry in Pennsylvania is here to stay. There are huge energy reserves available and huge profits to be made. The only question is after the profits are gone, who will pay to clean up the pollution left behind? Who will pay to repair the broken infrastructure of roads and bridges? Who will pay for the remediation efforts from the unintended consequences of gas extraction? Will the gas drillers pay their fair share or will once again the average citizen be forced through paying their taxes to clean up the environment and repair the infrastructure after the fact?
Between 2005 and 2008, 120 well-drilling permits were issued. In 2009, more than 1,700 permits were issued. In 2010 the sky is the limit. Fly over the state and you will see many gas pads similar to the pictures found below. To understand the scale of the deforestation each site removed five acres of trees.
One in three acres of state forest land is currently available for gas drilling. Imagine hiking through a state forest where every third acre is a gas pad. Gas drillers will seek to expand that acreage in 2010. We say enough is enough. Now we are not advocating a no drill ban, as in New York State, but we are advocating a moratorium on new state forest leases to properly address all the risks, and a severance tax to pay for those risks.
Please contact your state senator and your state representative to express your support for a severance tax on gas extraction in Pennsylvania and a stop to further gas leases on state forest land.
