|
by Curt Ashenfelter, Executive Director
To date, gas drillers have not acknowledged hikers' grievances, and have been ignoring requests to meet. This is winning the industry few hiking friends.
If gas drillers would only acknowledge grievances, it could begin to repair its relationship with the hiking community. Movements towards greater transparency and voluntary disclosure would be a positive step and accommodate major grievances of hikers.
Meaningful consultations with Keystone Trails Association and other interest groups - instead of full-page ads in newspapers - would be a better use of corporate resources. Gas drillers need to recognize and address real problem areas, not wallpaper newspapers with full-page ads telling us they are good "neighbors," as they pollute our streams and sources of drinking water, chase us off public trails on public property, and place seismic charges directly on trails.
Gas drillers must make good-faith efforts to reduce adverse impacts to hikers and hiking trails. This means not only strengthening compliance and ensuring subcontractor performance, but also making conscientious project decisions regarding the location of well pads, compressor stations and other infrastructure, mitigation of light and noise pollution, and routing of truckloads and pipelines.
While this will increase mitigation costs, it would reduce hiker objections to the industry and solve real problems.
While negative impacts of gas development will not be eliminated, gas drillers need to ensure that some actions provide benefits that are both tangible and as widely and fairly distributed as possible. For most hiking trails, this means procuring as much buffer zone as possible and when appropriate paying the costs of relocating trails to more scenic areas.
Making investments that deliver benefits to hikers and hiking trails is important. The benefits of providing well-designed hiking trails to the public is a concrete way to distribute the benefits of unconventional gas development beyond the Board room.
|