- Tom Wilber
Gas Industry “Buries” Fracking’s True Dangers Says Tom Wilber
By EcoWatch, April 30, 2013
Author and journalist Tom Wilber doesn’t take sides on whether the risks of fracking outweigh its rewards. But as a reporter, he does have strong feelings about the issue of transparency. “And often, this puts me on the same side of the fence as the anti-fracking activists,” Wilber said in an April 23 speech at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.
Wilber, author of the 2012 book Under the Surface: Fracking, Fortunes and the Fate of the Marcellus Shale, said the natural gas industry is different than almost every other type of industry in terms of the exemptions and the nondisclosure agreements under which it operates. All of this secrecy, “doesn’t give people a true idea of what all of the risks are,” he explained. “And part of my job is to show what the industry is rather than just the glossy public relations image of itself.”
Methane migration is a particularly hot-button issue in the overall discussion on fracking. Wilber has written extensively on the topic and understands that methane does occur naturally in water wells. But as for Dimock, PA, one of the battleground towns where the industry and local residents have fought over the issue of methane migration, Wilber reminds his readers that the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP)—often perceived by anti-fracking activists as a friend of industry–concluded that the methane polluting the aquifer under the town was thermogenic, from deeper producing formations, rather than biogenic or naturally occurring gas that collects in shallow seeps.
Residents in Dimock and in towns across the country have found thermogenic gas in their water where drilling is taking place. The gas industry typically blames methane migration on naturally occurring circumstances and often ignores findings to the contrary. “It is an insidious thing about the approach the gas industry is taking to this, which is to try to muddle things, rather than to try to be accountable for things,” Wilber said at the event, sponsored by Green GW, a student environmental group. “There is this defensive, ‘We didn’t do it, it’s always been there,’ type of approach.”
For example, according to DEP records, Dimock resident Norma Fiorentino’s water well exploded in early 2009 as a result of production gas, not naturally occurring methane, leaking into an aquifer and moving into her well, Wilber told the audience. “So when the industry said, ‘This is just a problem that’s always been around,’ it’s really confusing the issue,” he said.
The hardback edition of Under the Surface was released about a year ago; the paperback edition is scheduled to be published soon. With an absorbing narrative and solid reporting, the book has been well-received by industry officials, residents and anti-fracking activists alike.
“There are people who live directly over this resource who never knew they lived over a major natural gas resource or oil resource,” he said.
While Pennsylvania and West Virginia rushed into fracking, New York has taken a cautious approach due in large part to the organizing efforts of anti-fracking activists. “New York is unique in that it is the only state with this type of resource underneath that has not gone ahead to allow it to be exploited,” Wilber said. “New York has become something of a showcase of the anti-fracking movement.”
The fact that part of the Marcellus Shale is located in the New York City watershed helped to invigorate the movement. “At the beginning, the awareness wasn’t there of the magnitude of all of this,” he said. “But once people started getting their mind around the fact that the New York City watershed was under a prime drilling zone, it raised a lot of opposition that we have to put the brakes on.”
“If you’re Gov. Cuomo and you have this critical mass of local and city elected officials saying, ‘We don’t want it,’ that’s going to send a message,” Wilber said.
NOTE: The book entitled The End of Country by Seamus McGraw describes the impacts of drilling and fracking generally on the region including Sesquehanna County in Pennsylvania. The WV Surface Owners Rights Organization carries an article on The Industrialization of Rural West Virginia on their web-site WVsoro.org.
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