The Marcellus Shale – Your Shi Poo Pi!

Turns out that our summer house in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania is sitting on top of a large vein of Marcellus Shale, which in turn is housing one of the largest natural gas fields in the United States. No one cared about the Marcellus Formation until recently, when new drilling techniques first used in Texas were applied to the Marcellus and lo and behold, there was gas in them thar hills!

Most of the drilling in the Marcellus Formation will be horizontal and underground, with large quantities of water used to create fractures in the rock to release the gas. It’s a process that allows a single visible well to extract gas from a very large underground acreage, making the entire process financially feasible and quite profitable. The Marcellus could potentially yield enough natural gas to supply the entire country for 2 years, with an estimated market value of trillions of dollars.

The Gas Rush is On

Land lease negotiations with the locals in our area are in full swing as gas companies compete for rights to drill wells on their land. The first to sign contracts got fairly low rates, but land owners have since learned to negotiate in groups, and the lease price has gone up considerably in the past year. Land leases in our county are currently going for $2000 an acre, with 15% royalties.

Part of me is really happy for the locals living in the sparsely populated rural areas being targeted for drilling. These folks deserve a break. And, if they play their cards right, they will surely get one. Why, farmers formerly earning a sustenance living could become millionaires if their wells produce as expected!

The Environmental Questions

Of course, there are many concerns about the environmental impact of the drilling. Although the underground nature of the process means a relatively small visible footprint, the huge quantities of water that must be used could threaten local water supplies. The trucks needed to carry that water from areas outside the drill zone can create noise and pollution and damage roads. There are also concerns about quality of the water in the area, since most of us get out water from wells. The Gas Companies tell us that the wells are drilled well below the water supply and with casings to protect the aquifers. But who ever trusted an energy company with the environment?

Last night was one of the first meetings on the environmental impact of what will likely be decades of natural gas development in the area. Some good advice came from the meeting, the most important of which was to test your water both before and after drilling starts and not to allow drilling within 200 yards of the water source. Given that most of the drilling is underground, I don’t see how the latter can be reliably enforced.

The DEP is getting involved, and advises landowners to be proactive in monitoring drilling going on on or near their properties, and to report any potential violations to the DEP.

I wonder if any of the folks over at The Pump Handle can comment on the potential health impact of natural gas drilling…

More Information

• Penn State Extension is doing a marvelous job of educating the public about the issues. Their Natural Gas Wiki has everything you need to know, from how the gas is mined to how to negotiate a land lease contract.
• Geology.com is another great source of information on the Marcellus Formation mining.
• Catskill Mountainkeeper does a nice job of summarizing the environmental issues.
• OGAP, the Oil and Gas Accountability Project, has a free downloadable 220 page booklet called Oil and Gas at Your Door, written specifically for landowners and others affected by oil and gas development.

Shi Poo Pi?

Of course, whenever I hear the name Marcellus, all I can think of is Marcellus Washburn, the Music Man’s lovable sidekick, played by the late Buddy Hackett. Hackett started his show biz career in the Catskills, another area on the Marcellus Slate Belt that is being targeted for natural gas mining. So I know that, were Hackett alive today, he’d be singing this song…

Shi-Poo-Pi!

Well, the well you dig on the very first try
Is usually a shy one
And the well you dig on the second time out
Is sure to be a dry one
But the well you drill on the third time around,
Slate on the top, gas in the ground!
That’s the well you’re glad you’ve found–that’s your
Shi-Poo-Pi!

Shi-Poo-Pi! Shi-Poo-Pi! Shi-Poo-Pi!
The gas that’s hard to get!

Shi-Poo-Pi!Shi-Poo-Pi!Shi-Poo-Pi
But you can mine her yet!