Fracturing has increased available domestic natural gas supply by 35%. (Photo source: TheSilentPhotographer at Wikimedia Commons)
A new wave of natural gas drilling
is spreading across the country.
But the process is on hold in New
York state while regulators and
citizens debate the issue. Samara Freemark reports
that some New Yorkers see drilling
as a way to save the economy of a
particularly depressed part of the
state. But others say it could ruin
the economy for good:
Transcript
A new wave of natural gas drilling
is spreading across the country.
But the process is on hold in New
York state while regulators and
citizens debate the issue. Samara Freemark reports
that some New Yorkers see drilling
as a way to save the economy of a
particularly depressed part of the
state. But others say it could ruin
the economy for good:
When Kathy Colley heard that natural gas drillers were coming to upstate New York, it was kind of like someone had told her that the whole region had won the lottery.
“Here we have this wonderful god given opportunity. This is a blessing.”
That’s because Colley and her neighbors had learned that they had natural gas beneath their land.
New York State’s natural gas was supposed to be untappable- it was too far down, and it was suspended in tiny bubbles in shale rock. But a new technique called hydraulic fracturing made drilling possible in those kinds of shale fields. Fracturing has increased available domestic natural gas supply by 35%.
Drillers started moving into New York State last year. But officials there put a moratorium on the practice while regulators debated whether to allow fracturing.
For Kathy Colley, it’s a no-brainer. Drilling means saving a dying regional economy.
“It’s been such a depressed area. It’s struggling. The farmers are dying here. This is a time when it would just give people a life. Billions of dollars. Thousands of jobs. This is an opportunity to get healthy.”
A lot of local officials all across the country feel the same way. Gas drilling can mean tax revenues, and jobs, and economic development.
But some people say that while drilling may bring in some money at first, in the long run it’s a lousy way to develop a local economy.
“It’s an unsustainable form of economic development.”
That’s Adam Flint. He works with the Binghamton Regional Sustainability Coalition in upstate New York.
“However much gas is under the ground, it is unrenewable.”
And when the gas runs out, the jobs will go. So will the tax revenue. Flint estimates New York would get a couple of decades of gas production before the state’s fields are tapped dry.
That kind of boom and bust cycle is what Wes Gillingham is worried about. Gillingham is a farmer and environmentalist who heads an organization called Catskill Mountainkeeper. I met up with him and his family at his farm house.
He showed me a banjo he had bought cheap in Casper, Wyoming in the 1980s, at the end of an oil boom.
“I had never seen a place in my life that had so many pawnshops. And the pawnshops were just stuffed to the ceiling with really nice stuff- really nice stuff, at really cheap prices, cause everyone was just pawning everything they had.”
He’s afraid the same thing will happen in upstate New York.
“I always think about this when people say, ‘but we need the gas.’ Prices go up, companies come in, they put more rigs out, and there’s this huge influx of money and activity and then when the price drops back down they shut it all down. That has huge impacts on the community.”
And it’s not just the boom and bust. There are also environmental impacts like a legacy of water pollution, abandoned infrastructure, and habitat destruction.
Adam Flint says those kinds of problems would prevent upstate New York from ever developing any kind of stable long-term economy.
“It’s a question of which road to travel. We can have gas production and turn upstate New York into a major industrial zone. Or we can have tourism, agriculture, a green economy, alterative energy, jobs that all those things create. We can’t do both.”
New York state officials are almost certain to approve gas drilling this year – 2010. When they do, there’s a long line of community and environmental groups ready to challenge the state in court.
For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.