Marcellus/Mitchell
Last summer the quiet
country towns, rolling hills, and lush mountains of central and southwestern
Pennsylvania hardly seemed extraordinary, but like the man said, there’s things
going on that you don’t know. The significance lies beneath the surface,
literally, and while not as noteworthy as the Keystone State’s first
revolution, another historic threshold undoubtedly is being crossed. If Pogo lived
in those hills, he might say, “We have met the future, and he is us.” Indeed.
The Marcellus Shale gas
play, to use the industry patois, is the commonwealth’s antithesis to both the demise
of steel in the early 80s and the lingering nationwide recession that,
ironically, began about the same time as the breakout of widespread gas drilling
in Pennsylvania. Imagine when Sutter’s Mill caused such a stir in the
mid-1800s. Ponder having been alive during the Great Texas Oil Boom of the
early 20th Century. “Quite frankly, this is bigger than all those
things,” said Thomas Murphy, co-director of Penn State’s non-partisan Marcellus
Center for Outreach and Research. “This has implications on an international
basis.”
Insert nut graph here,
and every Marcellus story has one: several lengthy yet tightly edited and well
written sentences explaining the Marcellus as a vast reservoir in the
northeastern United States, some five thousand to eight thousand feet below the
surface and containing, ummm, the numbers once differed greatly, but the best
estimate is from the USGS at 84 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and 3.4
billion barrels of gas liquids that until relatively recently were impossible,
or too expensive, to extract, that is, until the advent of the controversial
method known as “hydraulic fracturing.” The loaded word “fracking” usually pops up
here if it hasn’t already, preceding a description of the process: boreholes
drilled down thousands of feet, then extended horizontally; the drill holes are
encased, and a mixture of pressurized water and potentially dangerous chemicals
pumped down and into the shale bed, fracturing the rock and allowing the gas to
escape and be collected and routed back to the surface. Depending on the
writer’s sense of fairness, what comes next is a synopsis either of the risks
associated with the practice, the economic benefits, or sometimes both. Perhaps
not tightly edited and well written, but you get the picture.
On a warm July morning in State College, over a light
breakfast at one of Pennsylvania’s seemingly ubiquitous Eat’n Park restaurants,
Murphy spoke of the nation’s shift in electric power generation from coal to
natural gas. He spoke of the effects the Marcellus resources will have “from an
energy standpoint, from an economic standpoint.” In both instances, he used the phrase “historic
change.”
In the Marcellus lexicon, such superlatives are not
uncommon. They include the Shakespearean “sea change,” the sporting “game
changer,” and various if not predictable uses of “boom” and “rush.” USA Today calls the Marcellus play part
of “an emerging national energy rush” offering the possibility of nationwide
“energy independence.” The same article
quotes a Citigroup expert who points toward “a genuine revitalization and
reindustrialization of the economy.” Heady stuff.
Further examples abound. The Associated Press summarizes
that, “Pennsylvania may be set to dominate natural gas production in the
Marcellus shale region for many years.” A Penn State economic impact report states,
“The Pennsylvania Marcellus could have a profound effect on the US natural gas
market.” A separate PSU study calls the increase in state and local sales and
income taxes in the top gas-producing counties “especially remarkable.” Another
Happy Valley researcher says Pennsylvania “has the potential to become an OPEC of natural gas” and that the Marcellus will
impact the statewide economy in a way “not seen since the collapse of the steel
industry.” A headline in the Oil
& Gas Journal over an article about Marcellus reads, in part, “Great
Economic Potential.” In a piece titled
“The Great Shale Rush,” Bloomberg/BusinessWeek
labels the Marcellus the “world’s second-largest gas field behind South
Pars, shared by Iran and Qatar,” or if you prefer, it is “the largest domestic
shale gas play the United States has ever seen,” as the Pennsylvania Geological
Survey puts it. Succinct as always, T. Boone Pickens tells Rolling Stone, “Natural gas is the solution to America’s energy
problems.” Point is, these seemingly hyperbolic words, phrases, and claims are
all the more remarkable for the simple fact they are not exaggerations.
To paraphrase one study, the derrick, or drill rig, is
the most obvious symbol of the industry’s impact (more than 400 total jobs are
associated with each rig, according to Murphy and various other sources);
however, “many activities before and after drilling . . . generate significant
economic impacts,” according to that widely quoted PSU study addressing the
direct, indirect, and “induced” impacts that totaled more than $20 billion
statewide in 2010 alone. Finding and
leasing a suitable potential well site, establishing the infrastructure needed
to drill for and transport the gas, and landowner royalties—alone estimated to
likely exceed $1.2 billion in 2012, according to the AP—all create a ripple
effect to “stimulate the local economy and provide additional resources for
community services such as health care, education, and charities,” according to
the 2011 report. Various news reports cite the positive economic impact on
industries ranging from entertainment/recreation and hotels/motels to rubber
hoses, warehousing, and plastics and chemicals. Additionally, the first
partial-year collections of a new impact fee paid by drillers and signed into
law last February totaled $206 million, money that will be distributed among
all Pennsylvania counties and many towns and cities, according to the state
Public Utilities Commission.
Consider, too, some of the effects on the labor market. According
to the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry, unemployment statewide
fell by 16,000 in November. That’s the greatest unemployment drop in 30 years
and the second highest ever recorded. On the other hand, employment growth is
hardly as impressive. According to the department’s Center for Workplace
Information and Analysis, the number of jobs statewide grew at the modest if
not lethargic rate of about two percent, not only over the past ten years but
also during the last three, when the majority of Marcellus economic activity
has occurred. Two percent job growth scarcely merits mention until compared to
the rise within the industries that drill for gas, extract it, build and
operate pipelines, and provide various forms of related support and
transportation. In those core industries, employment grew by 183 percent.
That’s 20,000 new jobs. In three years. During the recession. Similarly
juxtaposed is the growing number of those core industries themselves. Across
Pennsylvania, the number of establishments—all businesses and companies—rose by
less than five percent 2009-2012. Meanwhile, the number of establishments
within the six Marcellus core industries increased by 60 percent. That’s nearly
four hundred more businesses, not counting the more than 800 newly created businesses
within the thirty ancillary, or Marcellus-related, industries that added 16,000
jobs during that three-year span. Finally and overall, the department reports
that also in November, in the larger statistical category of mining and logging,
employment reached “its highest level” ever while “total Pennsylvania
employment has yet to reach pre-recession totals.” Surely it is fair to say the Marcellus is
significantly affecting employment in the commonwealth.
The pay is good, too. Statewide,
the average annual wage is a little less than $50,000. Meanwhile, the average
is $89,000 for workers in the Marcellus core industries and about $65,000 in
the ancillary industries. In Williamsport, the chief executive of the chamber
of commerce told USA Today, “I know
people in their 20s with high school [diplomas] making $120,000 a year.” Anecdotal evidence abounds in conversations
with staff at restaurants, hotels and motels, retail stores, and elsewhere.
Better yet, belly up at most any watering hole in one of the Marcellus counties.
(Pennsylvania has 67 counties; 38 have shale gas; about two dozen have been
drilled, Penn State’ s Murphy said.) The bars swarm with rig men, gas field
workers, truck drivers, mechanics, surveyors, engineers, estimators, paper
pushers, company men, tradesmen, and others who are gainfully employed and will
tell you they are living high, thanks to the Marcellus.
In the Tioga Valley town of Mansfield—population 3,625—at
Changos Cantina, sitting at a bar table is a truck driver who hauls equipment
to well sites. He is a surly, leather-jacket type, sporting a trimmed goatee,
and he takes the existential approach: the gas well is a hole in the ground
that makes him money. Specifically, he has made enough to buy a new Harley for
himself and a new ‘vette for his wife. “Then she wanted a driveway for the car,
so I got her that too,” he says, throwing back another Yuengling. A week or so
later, down in the southwestern part of the state near the West Virginia and
Ohio borders, where most of the drilling is taking place now, a hip young couple
recounts their experience. They work as a team in land abstracts, scouring
courthouse records as surrogates for energy companies looking to lease drilling
land, and they make a good living between the two of them. They’re certainly
not the only regular folks making good.
While visiting the Quaker state, I met one other such person
worth noting. Our meeting was planned, not happenstance, and his odyssey led me
to decide to spend a month checking out the Marcellus rather than carousing in South
Florida or even visiting family back home in Virginia. I met up with my younger
brother John Mitchell, a fairly recent hire in the natural gas workforce. “I love my job,” he told me. As well he should.
In late 2011, before signing on with
Nabors Industries—one of the world’s leader drilling contractors—John led a
tenuous existence. In spite of having a newly minted diploma from the
University of South Carolina, he was subsiding on meager pay working part-time
in a bar and doing side-jobs for friends; some occasionally lent him cash to
repair his dilapidated Jeep or meet some other unexpected expense. By the end
of that year, he was living in a storage shed. Today, he drives a brand new
Ford Super Duty 350 and is looking to buy a house. “I still have student loans,
but I am paying way in excess of my monthly payments. I’m paying off my credit
cards.” Pausing, he added, “I no longer think about my bills.” Also, he visited
Chicago not too long ago and dropped a grand or so on a new wardrobe, the first
time he’s done that since . . . well, he’s never done that. John is a “top
drive technician.” He is one of two Nabors men in the Marcellus district who
are essentially specialized mechanics on call 24/7 to repair the top drive, the
mechanism that is suspended from the derrick and performs the drilling. The
annual pay is between $100,000 and $150,000. Not bad for a guy who spent the
previous New Year’s Eve in a metal shack.
Brother John, 41, left home at age 16 or so and has been
living on his own ever since. He has enjoyed periods of prosperity, mostly
while working as an industrial electrician, but stability and success have
largely eluded him. Knowing him and meeting all the other people whose lives
have been changed by the the gas field beneath their feet has literally put
human faces on the phenomenon that is the Marcellus.
Prior to last summer’s visit, “Marcellus” was Ving
Rhames’ character in Pulp Fiction, and
the most notable mental picture I associated with natural gas was faucet water
lit afire, an image recently reinforced by a Natural Geographic spread. Further research into those flaming
faucets and the pair of Duke University studies that links methane migration to
the water supply is nothing if not revealing and may lead some to question the
veracity of sweeping judgments based on those images alone.
This is absolutely not to say that risks do not exist.
They do. In addition to methane migration, complaints most often cited are
contaminated ground- and surface water; chemical spills; explosions; earthquakes;
degradation to highways, bridges, and rural roads not designed for the heavy
(literally) traffic that the industry has brought; rigs, pipelines, and plants
scarring the land, especially the many state and federal parks above the
reservoir; and huge corporations that will reap billions in profits, then abandon
the labor force after bleeding dry the state’s resources. The purpose here is
not to take on the scientists, preservationists, disgruntled landowners, city
fathers, SUNY students, or Hollywood stars in a bid to defend the industry
against their voices. Let them be heard. They are being heard. Each
risk—perceived, potential, and documented—should be continuously studied,
researched, and reported individually because the body of knowledge continues
to develop and “each one is its own story,” as Penn State’s Murphy said. Let
lawmakers, public figures, and citizens become—and remain—informed and cast
their lots accordingly. To that end, countless newspapers, magazines, journals,
web sites, government agencies, universities, think tanks, associations, and
others have put out myriad information on the subject and continue to do so.
Penn State certainly is at the forefront. Also, the Philadelphia Inquirer—especially staff writer Andrew Maykuth—has published
an impressive number of articles that are fair, balanced, and accurate, while
Carnegie Mellon University has established an authoritative and sweeping online
compendium of most all things Marcellus (http://guides.library.cmu.edu/marcellusshale). All should avail themselves of these
and other resources.
However, don’t forget the human faces of the people up
in Pennsylvania who are not billionaires, corporate executives, or industry
kingpins. They are not wealthy landowners, government officials, or even public
figures. They have no agenda outside of seeking to rekindle the American dream for
themselves and their families. They are the
ladies in crisp uniforms sharing a smoke break at the back of a newly built
hotel or motel, they are the barkeeps and waitresses where I ate and drank,
they are the workers in the small businesses and convenience stores. They are
the roustabouts, survey men, secretaries, and tens of thousands of others whom
the Marcellus has given a chance at opportunity, perhaps even prosperity,
during this seemingly endless time of lost jobs, foreclosed homes, shrunken
budgets, failed businesses, dying towns, moribund industries, and general
economic malaise both personal and societal. Don’t forget them and the fact
that they have been given one other gift: hope in the future. Surely the rest
of the country, and even the world, should aspire to as much.
Loren
Mitchell is a freelance writer who teaches English at Hawaii Community College.
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