Panel predicts natural gas development to bring benefits and challenges

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Lycoming County could reap huge benefits from the drive to develop natural gas in the Marcellus Shale region, but with such benefits come challenges the county will face as well.

That was the message delivered Friday during a Pennsylvania Economy League forum at the Williamsport Country Club.

The forum featured a panel comprised of state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Muncy, county Commissioner Rebecca A. Burke, and Stephen W. Rhoads, president of the Pennsylvania Oil and Gas Association.

According to Rhoads, natural gas exploration "will be a transformational thing in this economy."

"There are huge opportunities, but there are huge challenges at the same time," he said.

Several factors converged to create the opportunity to extract gas from the Marcellus Shale, which encompasses a large portion of Pennsylvania, all of West Virginia and parts of New York, Ohio and Maryland, Rhoads said.

Those factors include the development of new technology such as horizontal drilling, 3-D seismic testing and hydrofracturing, robust gas prices and the need for cleaner energy sources to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Rhoads cautioned that natural gas development in the region will not happen quickly, like "a gold rush," but will be gradual, developing over decades.

Natural gas development will create opportunities for entrepreneurs, such as the need to treat brine water from the flowback from hydrofracturing, Rhoads said.

There will be a large demand for laborers at the gas fields and support businesses, such as drilling contractors, hydrofracturing companies, and trucking companies.

"I imagine these companies will be moving here to do these jobs and will be hiring locally," Rhoads said.

Challenges include the need to build an infrastructure to support the gas industry, Rhoads said. Currently, no such infrastructure exists, he said.

"In this area there is no history, no culture or economic ties to the natural gas industry," Rhoads said. "consequently, there is no infrastructure to support that industry."

Also lacking, is the ability for the Marcellus Shale region to train a workforce to meet the skilled labor demands of the industry, he said.

An industry depression caused by plummeting gas and oil prices in the mid-1980s through the 1990s caused the industry to lose two generations of workforce, he said.

The forums are held to help inform league members, elected officials and the media about key issues, said James K. Gates, chairman of the league's Clinton-Lycoming committee.

Everett said he was optimistic that with new technology, such as horizontal drilling, which allows multiple wells to be drilled from a single well pad, natural gas can be developed in the area with minimal impact on the environment.

Everett also was optimistic about the prospects that gas development will positively impact the region's economy.

"The opportunities are extraordinary," he said. "The gas is there and the gas companies are going to be here for a long time."

Everett said central Pennsylvania, particularly Lycoming County, has a lot to learn about gas exploration, but already is ahead of other areas due to the work of the Penn State Cooperative Extension and the Community Gas Exploration Task Force, on which Burke serves as chairwoman.

"We are way ahead of what a lot of other counties are doing," he said.

However, natural gas exploration is not just a Lycoming County issue, he said. It is a state issue.

That means educating other legislators about "the enormity of what's going on and how it's going to change Pennsylvania over the next 10 years."

Everett discussed how gas exploration will impact state tax incentive programs such as Clean and Green. He said each county has its own rules regarding what violates the program. The legislature needs to better define the rules for the program so that they are uniform across the state.

Everett said he does not believe the industry's impact on the region's water resources, particularly involving hydrofracturing, will be a problem.

What will be a problem, he said, is how the backflow from hydrofracturing will be treated.

Burke said the county realized about a year ago that it had to become involved in the gas exploration issue when the register and recorders office saw a daily log jam of people "14 deep" researching deeds associated with gas leases.

The county launched the task force to deal with local gas exploration issues, she said. The task force visited the Barnett Shale region in Texas, where the technology being used in the Marcellus Shale was first developed, she said.

Burke said 84,000 jobs were created developing the Barnett Shale.

"I probably won't be commissioner to see that, but certainly there are opportunities there," she said.

Gas company employees are already booking hotel rooms in the area, Burke said. Some rooms have been reserved for the next two years, she added.

The county 911 Center is implementing a program that requires all drilling sites to have an address so that emergency responders know where to go if someone is injured, she said.

Burke said the natural gas industry, along with other alternative energy sources such as wind energy, and the county landfill's methane-to-fuel program, could make Lycoming County an "energy corridor" in the region.