Saying the Marcellus Shale Commission reporting to Pennsylvania's Republican Governor Tom Corbett heard too much from business and industry and not enough from the residents of communities affected by natural gas drilling, eight political and environmental groups from the state on Tuesday announced their own "Citizens Marcellus Shale Commission" that will hold five public hearings beginning Wednesday.
The Citizens Marcellus Shale Coalition, headed by two former state representatives from both political parties, will hold its first public hearing August 31 in the southwestern Pennsylvania town of McDonald. A second public hearing has been set for September 6 in Philadelphia on the eve of the gas industry's Marcellus Shale Insight conference scheduled for September 7 and 8 in the city's convention center.
Organizers say the timing is coincidental.
"Right now is the key time because the legislature is dealing with it," former State Representative Dan Surra, a Democrat from Elk County told reporters on a conference call Tuesday. "Right now we have to get it right. There are places in Pennsylvania that are being inundated with drilling."
"We're still paying for the sins of the past - the coal industry," Surra said, mistakes he doesn't want repeated by the natural gas industry. "Much of Marcellus Shale development is taking place on pristine lands," Surra said, which impacts fishing and hunting, industries he called "renewable." "It's hard to have tourists when you don't have hotel rooms," he said, alluding to the shortage of lodging in drilling areas because rig crews have booked the rooms.
"This will be an alternative forum for citizens to participate," former State Representative Carole Rubley, a Republican of Chester County, said. "The Marcellus Shale can be very beneficial form an economic point of view" but the environmental consequences of industrialized gas drilling have yet to be fully examined.
At a minimum, Rubley said, Pennsylvania needs to have a tax or fee on drillers to fund and environmental cleanup fund.
Rubley said the ad hoc commission would have a broader focus than the body organized by Corbett to advise him on shale development in the state and will focus on the social impacts of drilling as well as the public health impacts.
"This is grassroots democracy," Responsible Drilling Alliance Director Barb Jarmoska said. "Our greatest concern is the rapid speed" of drilling in the state. "Pennsylvania has a long history of extractive industries -- how can we do this differently? How can we maximize the social benefits rather than privatize the profits and socialize the damages."
Organizers said the project's small budget was being funded with a grant from a Pittsburgh charitable foundation. In addition to hearings in McDonald and Philadelphia, the alternative commission plans hearings on September 13 in Williamsport, Sept 14 in Wysox and September 18 in Harrisburg.
The group will make a final report to the governor by mid-October, Surra and Rubley said. Organizers said Corbett's staff has been informed of the effort.
The citizens group includes the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center, Clean Water Action, Keystone Progress, the League of Women Voters, the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania, Penn Environment, the Sierra Club and the CLEAR (Coalition for Labor Engagement and Accountable Revenues) Coalition.
