This article originally provided by The Charleston Gazette

June 18, 2011

James R. Oxendale: Don't repeat history with Marcellus shale

CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Representatives of the state's oil and gas industry have begun a promotional blitz for Marcellus drilling.

Certainly gas extraction from Marcellus shale could have great potential for West Virginia, and indeed the nation. As a recent WVU study indicates, it offers opportunities for well paying, and for the most part, safe jobs. Additionally, in a time of cash-strapped treasuries, it should provide millions of dollars to state and county governments.

For the nation, it could help move us away from dependency on foreign supplies; spur a technology shift from oil-based to gas-based fuels, and reduce our apparent need to get involved in military conflicts in which our primary interest is access to oil.

Critics of extracting gas from shale correctly point out that it can damage the environment. The gas does not just emerge from the ground, it is generally removed through a process called "fracking". Pressure must be applied to the shale to release it, so water and chemicals are pumped into the ground. The process is water intensive. Each well can require millions of gallons, and this usage raises serious questions concerning the effects of such intense water use on existing water levels. We do not border the Mississippi, the Great Lakes or the Atlantic. Would "fracking" deplete potable water supplies in some areas? And given the increased demand for water, would this hit families who are already reeling from inflated food and gas prices?

 "Fracking" also raises issues involving its environmental effects on aquifers, and the disposal of the injected water. We know the water which enters the shale is treated with chemicals, which the drilling companies tell us are used at safe levels, but the water which emerges from the ground, is several times more salty than seawater, and is laden with chemicals, some of which are dangerous. These facts alone should not necessarily be reasons to reject Marcellus shale exploitation. The water table, which people worry about polluting, is about 1000 feet below the surface. Marcellus shale is several thousand feet below the aquifers, so if proper drilling and extraction practices were followed, engineers assure us that extraction per se need not pollute water supplies, nor should disposing of polluted water be a problem.

So, if adequate supplies of water were available, in a rational world, the Legislature would enact strict standards relating to extraction, and the executive would enforce such standards.

And herein lies the rub. While it seems sensible to enact and enforce policies that protect water, people and the areas in which the drilling takes place, rational is not a term normally applied to environmental policy in the Mountain State.

There is little in our history to indicate that our officials would protect any of the three. West Virginia government has been a wholly owned subsidiary of extractive industries since the first bucket of coal was mined in this state, and these companies, for the most part, have not given a whit for the health or safety of their employees, not to mention the environment. Does anyone who has grown up in the coalfields think that work areas won't be susceptible to environmental degradation, perhaps unalterable? That highways linked to the work areas won't be as drivable as roads in the Third World? That tanker trucks won't dump waste from these wells wherever they think they won't be spotted?

Inspectors will be few and far between, underpaid, working in an administrative setting which does not reward rigorous enforcement, and frequently on the prowl for employment with the drillers. They will occasionally issue fines that will probably be cheaper to pay than the cost of correcting the problem.

Companies won't follow the best-established practice, and the state won't require it. Our state political culture is rotten. Has a county prosecutor in recent memory prosecuted a public official on a felony charge for corruption? No examples come to mind. It is invariably federal prosecutors who nab our governors, legislative leaders, county officials and public employees.

So, with the Marcellus extraction ready to shift into overdrive, let's once again brace ourselves for a deluge of degradation, and remind ourselves how little things have changed since the mid-1970s when Neal Peirce described West Virginia in his book on the region, as "the saddest of all American states."

Oxendale is a retiree who lives in Oak Hill.