Marcellus Shale

Some Personal Thoughts

In some form or fashion mining/drilling/fracking Marcellus Shale for natural gas is on everyone's mind, whether you're for or against it. A great deal of information exists, pro or con, and it's difficult to extract from it the salient features that would allow one to make up one's mind in an unbiased way. Here I would like to discuss the issue, hopefully rationally, as it applies to Garrett County.

First I would like it to be known that I live on the lake, and while my family has a small farm near Swanton, we don't have hundred's of acres of land. Selling our mineral rights is not an option. Therefore, one might be inclined to already label me as "anti-fracking", but that's not entirely true. As with pretty much all of us, we go along with something that's put out for the public to join as long as it benefits us. The imperative word here is "us." A human being is basically selfish. We want to do what WE want to do, not what someone else wants us to do. It's the American way. I will explore this "me" issue later. The second issue is: Is it really that profitable for us, the population of Garrett County?

My gut-feel currently is that fracking should be limited to no closer than 10 miles of the Deep Creek Lake shoreline (the "me" issue) and that the industry provides very few long-term employment opportunities for residents of the County (the "economic" issue). With long-term I mean more than 5 years.

I have no proof for any of my assertions. I also venture to challenge those that approve of fracking to disprove my assertions.

This webpage is part of a website that seeks answers to Deep Creek Lake issues, one of which is groundwater.

Clean water is the most precious substance for mankind. Without water we could not live. Contaminated water is the cause of many cancers and life-threatening diseases, not just in the USA, but all over the world. Wars have been fought over water. Groundwater supplies our wells and streams. We have over 10,000 wells in this County. Some are over 1,000 ft deep. Good water is not obvious. We have to work for it and drill deep for it in certain circumstances. Groundwater feeds the lake. That's very clear from existing data that you can find elsewhere on this website. If groundwater becomes contaminated, then the lake becomes contaminated. This would have severe consequences on the local economy, perhaps killing it as a tourist attraction, and hence cause the loss of many jobs, and probably go into a difficult-to-recover-from depression.

The SPORE group is trying to determine the extent of the reach of the origins of the groundwaters that feed the lake. The Marcellus Shale exploration limit should be some distance beyond that distance in order to safeguard the lake. Coming up with the correct information to make such a decision is a difficult task. We have some ideas, but as volunteers we don't have the resources to come up with a well documented estimate. To us, it's clear that a detailed study MUST be done on this.

One might ask:"What can go wrong?" There are a lot of things that can wrong. The primary one is probably to underestimate the degree or extent of the fractured rock formations that exists in the various geological layers under Garrett County. Gas can move relatively easily in these fractures. But a lot of things can go wrong in just the drilling process itself, mostly in providing a short cut to the surface layers for the gas that is being extracted. Again, we don't have the resources to truly investigate this.

I want to come back to the "selfish" issue. I completely understand that the potential revenues that can be generated from one's property may possibly be lifesaving, or at least make for a more comfortable living. I also understand that, if you "own" the property, you should be allowed to do whatever you want to do, provide it does not impact your neighbors. The meaning of "impact" is a complicated one. What has an impact on one person or group of people doesn't mean it has an impact on the other. It then becomes a moral issue, and as we all know well, although one may not want to admit it, we all have different morals.

So, we're really at an impasse. How do you decide? The democratic way, by having people vote on it? That would be the American way. By leaving it up to the landowner? That would be the American way. Having the State decide? That's probably not entirely the American way. The truly moral way would say that the earth belongs to all creatures, humans and animals, and if our actions cause hurt knowingly to some of the creatures then we should NOT perform those actions.

Unfortunately I believe that all of us, without exception, are, to some degree, amoral. After all, each of us decides for oneself what is moral or amoral. Accepting someone else's values is still our choice. But, we only do things to benefit us, materially or spiritually. We decide what's moral on the basis of what someone else says or writes. I would say that all of us individually always try to convince others that some of our personal way is the way to go.

So what's going to happen? I believe that the strongest, the loudest, the most convincing, the dirtiest, the most amoral, the most conniving, etc., will win out!

So what does mean? Be the strongest, the loudest, the most convincing, the dirtiest, the most amoral, the most conniving, etc., and you will win!

That's the word by me, Pete Versteegen, 7/21/2012