Marcellus Shale - Gas Wells

October 28, 2010

Local group travels to argue ‘pooling’

By Sarah Hite shite@timesleader.com
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Duke Barrett, of Dallas, wanted to take his Cocker Spaniel puppy for a walk at Frances Slocum State Park one day but as he drove toward the park, he saw a young man surveying an area down the road from the Dallas School District campus.

He felt the need to stop.

“What are you doing?” Barrett asked the man.

Barrett said the surveyor told him his company was going to install a compressor station that would be the gathering point for all wells and pipelines in the area.

The area is a residential community, just a few hundred feet from houses and a church. It’s also a quarter-mile from schools that house children from kindergarten to 12th grade.

Barrett was bewildered over the development and demanded to know who would permit such a thing.

And who was responsible for allowing this compressor station? To Barrett’s understanding, no one in the area gave the “OK.”

“Now we all know that the teachers fill students’ heads with education and knowledge, but (with the) compression station (their lungs will be filled) with toxic fumes that are known to cause endocrine and neurological problems,” said Barrett, a member of the Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition (GDAC). “Who said that they could do that to the children of my community?”

Barrett and other anti-drilling activists gathered at the state Capitol building in Harrisburg on Tuesday morning to draw attention to forced pooling and statewide zoning exemptions for natural gas companies in the Marcellus Shale region. The group of protesters represented different gas drilling awareness organizations in the state who feel these issues will violate the rights of landowners and municipalities.

Forced pooling, also called fair or conservation pooling, would permit natural gas companies to acquire land from property owners who haven’t leased their land if their land is in an area where most landowners have given up their property to drilling. Gas companies insist this will cause fewer land disturbances in drilling areas, but landowners are concerned that this is “eminent domain in sheep’s clothing,” said John Trallo, of Sullivan County.

“As I was under the understanding, our democracy is based on one man and one vote – not one vote for one acre,” said Barrett.

State legislators are considering forced pooling as an aspect of a severance tax for gas companies. Statewide zoning exemptions are also being considered, and activists feel this act would belittle the power of local municipalities.

Liz Martin, born and raised in Dallas and a member of GDAC, feels these issues aren’t just infringing on citizens’ rights but are wrecking the hopes of a community.

Martin’s family has owned 40 acres of land in Dallas for years, and now she has finally been able to build and live in her “dream home” on the property with her family. Martin hopes her 13-year-old son will continue to live on the land when he grows older.

“The thing is … if our watershed is destroyed, I’ll have no choice but to leave,” she said with tears in her eyes. “I’ve been there my whole life.”

Demonstrators held signs behind speakers at the press conference, and, afterwards, the activists went to speak with the state Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R-Glen Mills) and state Senate President Joseph Scarnati III (R-Warren) to express their ill feelings about these issues.

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