FOR A fuel that burns clean enough to use in your kitchen, natural gas has produced smoke you can choke on in public debate.

So when state Rep. Eddie Day Pashinski brought Marcellus Shale legislative hearings to Wilkes University in Wilkes-Barre this week, the risk of fog ran high. To my pleasant surprise, it was four hours of thoughtful and enlightening testimony, highlighted by compelling comments from the one faction too often excluded in the whole “fracking” debate: unbiased science.

Not to discount the comments preceding two college professors and an environmental consultant. Gas Drilling Awareness Coalition President Tom Jiunta made the blunt point that the state only has one inspector for every 742 wells (Marcellus and conventional gas/oil). He also made the nuanced connection between chronic exposure to small but dangerous quantities of chemicals or gases and health insurance prices.

“This silent and cumulative cost to the public health has been adding to the skyrocketing cost of medical care,” Jiunta said.

Coalition Treasurer Nancy Dolan disputed claims the industry is a homegrown success story, noting companies in China, Japan and Norway are involved with drilling. She also entered into the record a coalition video, “Marcellus Shale Reality Tour.” You can watch online at www.gdacoalition.org. Yes, it’s one-sided, but well worth a look.

PennFuture staff attorney Mark Szybist rattled off a string of issues and proposed solutions that sound so sensible you wonder why we’re not already doing them. Two examples: Make sure the Department of Environmental Protection has the resources to oversee drilling, and ensure fracking waste water is properly disposed.

As to the claim that natural gas can be a transition fuel that gets us from oil dependency to more sustainable resources, Szybist posed the forgotten paradox: We need money – a severance tax on gas extraction being an obvious choice – to fund research that creates those new technologies.

“If natural gas is to be a bridge,” he said, “we’ve got to build that destination.”

These arguments were counterbalanced effectively by Terry Bossert from Chief Oil and Gas and Michael Love from UGI. Bossert repeated his company’s stance: A reasonable severance tax is fine. Love conceded Marcellus gas is flowing out of state because of a shortage of pipelines, but predicted it will be used locally soon. “In the next year or two we hope to have Wilkes-Bare entirely on Marcellus natural gas,” he said.

But as I said, it was the trio of science “wonks” who were both the most informative and entertaining.

Wilkes University professor Brian Redmond provided an overview of the complex interactions of methane and other elements that can release hazardous elements into our air and water. He suggested the presence of helium in methane could indicate it came from Marcellus Shale and not from shallower sources. He proposed the fascinating notion of pulling water for fracking use from the sand and gravel between the surface and our abandoned coal mines; it would prevent that relatively clean water from filtering into those mines and becoming contaminated with acid before flowing into streams.

Environmental consultant Brian Oram made the logical argument that there should be frequent, even constant, water monitoring near wells. But Wilkes professor Kenneth Klemow put the message from all three into succinct terms.

“My plea to you is that we try to improve and increase the amount of science, the amount of objective information that we have going into Marcellus Shale policy,” he said. “Preventing problems is cheaper than remedying them.”

Funny how science and common sense can fit so well together.

About the Author

Mark Guydish covers education for the Times Leader. Reach him at (570) 970-7161 or mguydish@timesleader.com.

A West Hazleton native, I worked as a service technician repairing electronic mailing and shipping systems, a bike shop owner and an Emergency Medical Technician (among other jobs) before landing a reporter job at the Times Leader Hazleton Bureau in 1995. I started by covering primarily politics in Hazleton City and outlying municipalities, eventually became "social issues" team leader in the Wilkes-Barre office with the accent on education, and headed the Hazleton Bureau for a spell before returning to full-time reporting, my preferred position. I'm an avid cyclist and rode across the country in 1990, a trip of more than 5,000 miles from New Jersey to Seattle and down the coast to San Francisco. Years in the Boy Scouts made me a life long backpacker and camper, and I've yet to find a better way to enjoy the quiet lure of winter snow than cross country skiing.

Mark also writes a regular blog for timesleader.com.

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