Letter to Editor, State Journal, January 3, 2016

Delegate Frank Deem’s opinion piece printed in The State Journal begs for a reply. To begin with, his economic accounting of the extreme extraction of natural gas from formations a mile or more below the surface, which must be crushed to free the gas, is wholly one-sided.

It does not take into consideration the huge externalized costs of the fracking industry. These include property damage, for which only a pittance is paid, because before and after appraisal is never done, nor is labor and lost product accounted for. It ignores the cost of lost aquifers, which impeccable research has shown occurs in 16 percent of the areas where a well is fracked. People get sick, cattle die, several industries are injured — not only forestry and agriculture, but also the retirement industry, which is substantial in West Virginia rural areas, recreation and hunting.

The real push for the big pipelines is export. The industry hopes to supply Europe and Asia with gas. This depends on cutting off supplies from other parts of the world. The United States has only 1.9 percent of the world’s dry land and has been a principal source of oil for the world for decades and a big national consumer of gas. The time has come when “the good stuff,” easy to extract, is gone and we must use “extreme extraction” to obtain oil and gas, even enough for ourselves, at considerably greater cost than conventional supplies.

Saudi Arabia is pumping oil at $20 a barrel from conventional wells. Qatar has huge reserves of gas and already has liquefaction plants. Russia, the ‘Stans, Iran have so much gas they really don’t even know how much they have — all conventional; no one even thinks about shale there. Russia has 10 percent of the Earth’s dry land and a great market, China, adjacent. Russia will take Yuan, rather than dollars, or rubles if they can get them. The ‘Stans would like to deliver their gas through Iran and Syria, or over Russian pipelines to Europe.

Mr. Deem shouldn’t be upset because people living in the countryside don’t want their living space uglified, their water polluted and their health harmed (reproductive difficulties is one of the most-studied effects — abortions, deformities and cycling problems), and their property values drastically reduced.

Besides, isn’t gas a temporary solution? Why give it subsidies and favorable legislation to tear up jack when what follows will be labor intensive, rather than capital intensive, inexhaustible, kind to the environment, work with existing industries and friendly to people? And, most important of all, doesn’t produce carbon dioxide?

S. Thomas Bond, Jane Lew, Lewis County, WV

http://www.statejournal.com/story/30860654/letter-to-the-editor-fracking-opinion-warrants-reply

We should have a say so in it since it will be close to homes… destroying woods…

We have already seen what pipelines have done to our County, so why do we want another one..