Fifty years ago, the American Petroleum Institute had conclusive evidence

From an Article by David Hasemyer, Inside Climate News, March 6, 2020

A lawsuit for damages related to climate change brought by the city of Baltimore can be heard in Maryland state courts, a federal appeals court ruled on Friday. The decision is a setback for the fossil fuel industry, which had argued that the case should be heard in federal court, where rulings in previous climate cases have favored the industry.

In a unanimous ruling, a three-judge panel of the Fourth U.S. Circuit of Appeals dismissed the industry’s argument that the lawsuit was more appropriate for federal court because the damage claims should be weighed against federal laws and regulations that permitted the industry to extract oil and gas, the primary cause of the greenhouse gas emissions that drive global warming.

Pending any further appeals, the ruling leaves the door open for the case to proceed in a Maryland court, where the city is relying on state laws covering a number of violations, including public nuisance, product liability and consumer protection.

The court’s decision Friday is the first federal appeals court to rule in a string of climate cases under appeal across the country over the question of federal or state jurisdiction. It affirmed an earlier ruling by a lower federal court that the case was best heard in state court.

The ruling is not binding on other pending appeals, but legal scholars say that other federal appeals courts will take notice of the findings.

Although the ruling blocks one avenue of defense for the industry, the judges did not foreclose other possible challenges related to the question of jurisdiction. There was no immediate indication from the industry of whether further legal options might be considered or what those might be.

Baltimore’s top legal officer, acting City Solicitor Dana Moore, hailed the ruling as a rebuke to the industry.

“We were confident in our case and are grateful that the Court of Appeals agreed,” Moore said in a prepared statement. “We look forward to having a jury hear the facts about the fossil fuel companies’ decades-long campaign of deception and their attempt to make Baltimore’s residents, workers, and businesses pay for all the climate damage they’ve knowingly caused.”

The foundation for the appeals court ruling was laid last year when lawyers representing the city argued before the appeals court that the foundation of the case rested on the promotion of a harmful product by the fossil fuel industry. That equated to violations of state product liability laws best decided by state courts, the city’s lawyers argued.

The essence of the fossil fuel companies’ argument was that much of the oil and gas was extracted from federal land under permits issued by the federal government so the allegations must be resolved under federal law.

Ann Carlson, an environmental law professor at the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment, part of the University of California, Los Angeles’ School of Law, said the ruling is significant because it steamrolls one of the primary roadblocks used by the industry in an attempt to block the city’s day in court.

“This ruling removes an obstacle to the plaintiffs moving forward in state courts and puts these cases much, much closer to a trial where the facts and the truth will emerge,” said Carlson, who has done limited pro bono work on the Baltimore case.

Carlson called the ruling “well-reasoned” and “solid,” so that other appellate courts considering similar climate cases could take notice. “There could be some influence,” she said. “The issues are much the same and this ruling could provide some guidance to the other courts.”

The Baltimore case, filed two years ago, seeks to hold 26 fossil fuel companies financially accountable for the threats posed by climate change. The lawsuit alleges that fossil fuel companies, including Exxon, Chevron and Phillips 66, knowingly sold dangerous products for decades and failed to take steps to reduce that harm.

Baltimore’s lawsuit claims that the 26 companies are responsible for approximately 15 percent of the carbon dioxide emissions in the five decades from 1965 to 2015. Among the consequences of that increase in atmospheric carbon have been extreme weather events and sea level rise, both particular threats to Baltimore.

“As a direct and proximate consequence of defendants’ wrongful conduct … flooding and storms will become more frequent and more severe, and average sea level will rise substantially along Maryland’s coast, including in Baltimore,” the city argued in its suit.

The Baltimore case joins more than a dozen lawsuits—including claims filed by the state of Rhode Island and cities and counties in California, Colorado, New York and Washington State—that are currently pending to hold fossil fuel companies financially accountable for their role in creating climate change and for deceiving the public about the impact of their business practices.

The industry is trying to steer the climate cases into the federal courts, where the U.S. Supreme Court could ultimately end up ruling on the issue.

###########################

See also: Former Exxon Scientists Tell Congress of Oil Giant’s Climate Research Before Exxon Turned to Denial | InsideClimate News, October 24, 2019

Exxon’s research warned of the risks of climate change from human-cause greenhouse gas emissions 40 years ago. Then came the ‘sea change’ at the energy company.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

See also: Shell and Exxon’s secret 1980s climate change warnings | The Guardian, September 18, 2018

In the 1980s, oil companies like Exxon and Shell carried out internal assessments of the carbon dioxide released by fossil fuels, and forecast the planetary consequences of these emissions. In 1982, for example, Exxon predicted that by about 2060, CO2 levels would reach around 560 parts per million – double the preindustrial level – and that this would push the planet’s average temperatures up by about 2°C over then-current levels (and even more compared to pre-industrial levels).

Denver smog is very unhealthy; Mountains are barely visible!

From an Article by Andy Bosselman, Denver Streetsblog, March 6, 2019

Today from downtown Denver, the peaks of the Rocky Mountain foothills were barely visible through the brown cloud of pollution that covered the region with an unhealthy level of fine particulate matter.

At six p.m., Denver’s air quality index measured 162, an unhealthy level more than three times worse than the moderate rating of 51 now in Beijing. The pollution triggered health warnings across the northern Front Range.

Colorado’s “brown cloud” is an increasingly frequent reminder of the Denver-Boulder metro’s car dependency and the impact of the state’s oil and gas production, which the industry projects will generate $12.5 billion in revenue this year.

Kyle Clark, a News 9 anchor, reported that 30 to 40 percent of ozone levels — a related form of pollution that is not responsible for the brown cloud — result from the state’s oil and gas industry. Traffic generates similar levels, he tweeted. He also pointed out the irony of today’s extreme air quality problems with the intense oil and gas industry lobbying that happened at the state capitol today as legislators considered sweeping environmental reforms.

Reducing car dependency could help the region achieve clearer air, and Denver has plans to do exactly that. But the city is better at setting goals than achieving them. In Denver’s Mobility Action Plan, officials set a strategic goal of reducing single occupancy vehicle commutes from 73 percent of trips to 50 percent.

The city plans to supplement current bus service with a high-frequency transit network. The proposal is part of the long-term planning process known as Denveright, which will be finalized later this year.

But there are no concrete plans for the city to come up with the funding needed to provide the improved transit service promised in the plans.

Meanwhile, the Colorado Department of public health warned all people in the area to “reduce prolonged or heavy exertion” today and tomorrow, especially “people with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children.”

Looking northeast from a downtown high-rise, it was almost impossible to see a nearby refinery. A crown of smog usually hovers over its buildings. But today its dirty halo blended into the thick haze of visible pollution that extended as far as the eye could see.

Not everyone agrees with the air quality plan!

From the Press Release, Shell Global Web-Site Post, November 22, 2017

BP, Eni, ExxonMobil, Repsol, Shell, Statoil, Total and Wintershall today committed to further reduce methane emissions from the natural gas assets they operate around the world. The energy companies also agreed to encourage others across the natural gas value chain – from production to the final consumer – to do the same.

The commitment was made as part of wider efforts by the global energy industry to ensure that natural gas continues to play a critical role in helping meet future energy demand while addressing climate change. Since natural gas consists mainly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, its role in the transition to a low-carbon future will be influenced by the extent to which methane emissions are reduced.

The eight energy companies today signed a Guiding Principles document, which focuses on: continually reducing methane emissions; advancing strong performance across gas value chains; improving accuracy of methane emissions data; advocating sound policies and regulations on methane emissions; and increasing transparency.

“Numerous studies have shown the importance of quickly reducing methane emissions if we’re to meet growing energy demand and multiple environmental goals,” said Mark Radka, Head of UN Environment’s Energy and Climate Branch. “The Guiding Principles provide an excellent framework for doing so across the entire natural gas value chain, particularly if they’re linked to reporting on the emissions reductions achieved.”

The Guiding Principles were developed in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund, the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Gas Union, the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative Climate Investments, the Rocky Mountain Institute, the Sustainable Gas Institute, The Energy and Resources Institute, and United Nations Environment.

“Our analysis at IEA shows that credible action to minimise methane emissions is essential to the achievement of global climate goals, and to the outlook for natural gas,” said Tim Gould, Head of Supply Division, World Energy Outlook, IEA.

“The commitment by companies to the Guiding Principles is a very important step; we look forward to seeing the results of their implementation and wider application. The opportunity is considerable – implementing all of the cost-effective methane abatement measures worldwide would have the same effect on long-term climate change as closing all existing coal-fired power plants in China.”

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Shell’s Pennsylvania Ethane cracker project enters main construction phase

From an Article by Sara Welch, Shale Gas Reporter, November 16, 2017

Shell Chemical Appalachia LLC has officially entered its main construction phase in the Ohio River valley in Beaver County, PA.

The new complex will use low-cost ethane from Marcellus and Utica shale gas producers to manufacture 1.6 million tonnes per year of polyethylene, which is used in products such as food packaging, furniture and automotive components. The facility will have three polyethylene units and an ethane cracker.

The complex will also have a 900-foot long cooling tower, rail and truck loading facilities, a water treatment facility, an office building, a laboratory and a 250-megawatt natural gas-fired power plant.

During operations, Shell expects the project to support up to 6,000 construction jobs and about 600 permanent employee positions. This Beaver County project is a $6 billion investment by the company.

Hillary Mercer assumed the role of vice president for the local Shell project, replacing its former vice president since 2014, Ate Visser. Mercer’s previous experience includes 30 years working for Royal Dutch Shell in a variety of roles. As vice president for the ethane “cracker” project, she will oversee all aspects of the project, from the construction of the plant and safety issues to production and customer relations.

Chemical Storage Tanks -- Elk River

EQB upholds WV-DEP chemical tank designations

From an Article by Ken Ward, Charleston Gazette, April 26, 2016

The state Environmental Quality Board has upheld decisions by state regulators about which chemical storage tanks would be covered by new safety standards passed to try to prevent a repeat of the January 2014 Freedom Industries spill that contaminated drinking water for thousands of people in Charleston and surrounding communities.

In a 10-page order, board members said that the state Department of Environmental Protection had legal authority to make the designations.

Lawyers for the Independent Oil and Gas Association of West Virginia and three related companies, C.I. McKown and Son Inc.; Pocono Energy Corp.; and Tempest Energy Corp., had appealed the WV-DEP designations and a formula the agency used to make them.

At issue in the case were decisions the WV-DEP made about which tanks are within two different zones within certain distances and stream-flow times from sites where public drinking water intakes are located. Under the law, originally passed in 2014 and then rolled back significantly last year, the WV-DEP designations — of “zones of critical concern” or “zones of peripheral concern” near intakes — determine what level of regulation applies to different tanks.

Natural gas lobbyists had tried to have their industry exempted entirely from the chemical tank legislation, but lawmakers declined to adopt that proposal.

Among other things, the gas industry appeal argued that the WV-DEP wrongly did not make its zone designations through a separate rulemaking that would have been subject to public review and comment, and that in making tank decisions, agency officials used “arbitrary and capricious” assumptions.

Board members said that the Legislature had required the WV-DEP to use the rulemaking process for certain parts of its implementation of the chemical tank law, such as setting fees and spelling out inspection procedures, but did not require that for other matters — such as the formula for determining tank designations.

“The Legislature did not state that a rule was required for making the mathematical model,” the board ruling said. “The board refrains from reading more into the statute than is expressly provided.”

Board members also said that the WV-DEP’s model “was essentially an invention required by law” and put together by the agency “with limited funds” in a six-month period, requiring “innovation, assumptions, and acceptance of limitations.”

“This is especially understandable given no alternative has ever been presented,” the board said.

The board did rule that the WV-DEP had wrongly implemented a 1,320-foot buffer zone for the Ohio River, adopted from the Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission, rather than using the 1,000-foot buffer mandated by the Legislature.

Board members, ruling after a hearing in January, also ruled that it was right to allow two citizen groups, the West Virginia Citizen Action Group and the West Virginia Rivers Coalition, to intervene in the case.

See also: www.FrackCheckWV.net

Can the Drilling and Fracking Companies in WV Crawl Out of the Mud?

Commentary by S. Tom Bond, Retired Chemistry Professor & Resident Farmer, Lewis County, WV, April 12, 2016

The drillers and frackers want you to think this is a temporary lull in fracking, they will soon be back bigger and badder than ever. Time moves on and things change. Remember the old saying “When Judgment Day comes I want to be in West Virginia: it’s twenty years behind in everything else, and surely it will be in that, too.” Typically, “the powers that be” in our state haven’t been getting the news.

All fracking is in limbo right now. The tall tales about availability of gas through fracking, the easy access to money in our society of schemes that can make a great return, and the fact conventional drilling had about drilled out all gas lands that were economically feasible, lead to everybody and his brother jumping into it. Never mind the change of scale, lack of experience with four new technologies that came along together, and considerable ignorance of what was really in those new target strata.

That enthusiasm, along with the world wide downturn in the use of energy for manufacturng lead to gross over production. There is a backlog of some 5,000 drilled and not produced wells waiting, the gas storage fields are filled to high pressure, and the bills on the borrowed capital keep coming in. Many companies are forced to sell at present low prices to meet those bills. Many are on the edge of bankruptcy.

Some of the names are famous. Chesapeake sold its Jane Lew offices to Southwestern Energy during the downsizing after Aubrey McClendon was removed, and now both are in trouble. Little activity is observed, and few fracking trucks are now going through the truck stop and fracking establishment here. McClendon’s subsequent adventure faced a court battle over illegal leasing in Michigan, and he apparently committed suicide in a car crash. Two years ago the hot investment news pertained to fracking. Now the situation is so bad they have about stopped discussing gas (and oil companies) in investment newsletters.

The arrogance which has characterized the industry “mimics the captain of the Titanic,” in one author’s words. They assure everyone they are on top of the situation, just give them another year or two.

Regardless of how the legislature sees it, fracking is loosing public support with only 36% of Americans support fracking, 51% oppose it, with Republicans changing views more than Democrats.

At present, much of America can get cheaper energy with gas than with renewables, but gas shuttinging out renewables through manipulation of legislatures is also a factor. Let’s list a few of the problems fracking faces.

Opposition is universal where fracking is tried, world wide, just as it is always supported by governments. This is true in Colorado, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Louisana, Florida, Canada, England, South Africa, New Zealand – in short, the locals don’t like it anywhere. The complaints are uniform: destruction of aquifers, denied by “authorities;” Air contamination and resultant sickness; effect on crops and livestock; serious complaints about light, noise, traffic near homes and animals and public relations resembling an invading army, but armed with law enforcement instead of guns.

Science is beginning to catch up with what has been said for years. There are presently 124 studies concerning water quality in fracked areas. Air quality is under active investigation. Aggressive company lawyers and stodgy judges will have to stand aside.

The array of opposition is amazing. No industry ever before faced as much or as sophisticated opposition. The resourcefulness and sophistication must be daunting. Several groups have regular access to aerial photographs of rights of way and construction. Imagine a “Pipeline Air Force” surveying your work, or “Marcellus-Shale.us”, which is supported by an acknowledged professional level photographer with a huge library of aerial photographs, the ability to put notations on them and to write excellent news articles explaining them!

Opposition includes experts in Petroleum Engineering to Environmental Science to Endocrine Disrupters to people intimately familiar with land and land values. And it includes hundreds of motivated people, willing to work for free in every corner.

Investors have lost interest, the desired high gains are not there. Fracking is not a hot topic in investment newsletters, the articles are inclined to give information on how to get out, or which stocks to hold as a longer shot. Activity in the field is using the backlog of already drilled wells. You see graphs like the one at the beginning, and claims of increased efficiency of new wells are implied. Not so. The increased production is from those wells already drilled, and simply closed in. That graph has noting to do with the efficiency of new wells.

Global oil and gas debts grew to $3T by 2013, and higher in subsequent years. The renewable energy surge may come before the oil and gas recovery. More details here.

Some few wells are being drilled. They are almost invariably going on established pads in hot spots. In the old days they drilled all over the country one well per pad, to find the hot spots to do first. Now they are using the best they found, and avoiding the expense of new pads, rock, and lines to connect to the larger collecting lines – strictly doing things to get the most new gas for the least expense. The point of this is that the longer production goes on, the more expensive the recovery of gas will become.

There are many court cases involving fracking. Some are upsetting the apple cart. Cabot recently paid 4.24M for contaminating the wells of two Dimock (PA) families. Some two dozen odd Dimock families had settled previously, doubtless for far less, but they were bound in the settlement not to talk about it, a common tactic to prevent the public from finding out price and details. Now Cabot is asking to have the judgment reduced to $85,500.

There are something like 220 nuisance suits against various drilling companies in West Virginia. These have been combined by the legal system, ostensibly to save costs, but the effect will be to homogenize them. Some in the legislature tried to redefine nuisance suits out of existence in the last session, but the public caught on in time and the effort was defeated.

Signs of panic are easy to find: (1) insider selling, (2) selling frack waste water for irrigation, the (3) fight against gas produced outside the US, (4) the need for public relations and (5) occasional slips of the tongue by executives.  What does the future hold, as the population of WV dwindles!

Update on SB 423, Amending the Aboveground Storage Tank Act

Report by Karan Ireland for the WV Citizens Action Group, Charleston, WV, March 7, 2015

The committee substitute for S.B. 423, “Amending the Aboveground Storage Tank Act” is before the House Judiciary Committee today. Environmental and citizen groups do not support this bill because, event though it is better than the introduced version, it is still a weakening of last year’s SB 373.

The ideal scenario would be for SB 373 to have a chance to work. Barring that, here are improvements that must be made in order for us to be okay with it:

Necessary Improvements to SB 423 Aboveground Storage Tank Act

1. Incorporate DEP’s risk-based rule. SB 423 does not incorporate DEP’s rule and would cause another year to go by without AST regulations in place – other than the initial registration, initial spill plans, and initial inspections. DEP’s Proposed AST Rule (47CSR63) was developed with extensive public input from industry and citizens to implement the Act. The rule divides tanks into three levels and requires more stringent protections for tanks that present the highest risks.

1. Tanks that pose a risk to water supplies must be included. SB 423 exempts approximately 36,000 tanks from regulation under the Act. Roughly one-third of the deregulated tanks are located within 1,000 feet of a river or stream. These tanks should continue to be regulated under the Act as they are most likely to contaminate water if they should fail.

1. Include stringent and explicit standards and accountability for tank and secondary containment integrity. The Freedom Industries disaster could have been avoided by regular tank inspections and a well-maintained secondary containment system.

SB 423 rolls back inspection requirements. Self-inspections should occur at least annually by qualified personnel. Tanks close to water intakes need to be inspected by DEP annually.

SB 423 rolls back Spill Prevention and Response Plan requirements. SPRPs need to be submitted to DEP and updated every 3 years, and must include info on stored chemicals.

SB 423 rolls back permit requirements. Individual permits for tanks closest to drinking water intakes should be required.

SB 423 creates an alternative means of compliance for nearly all tanks through modifications of existing permits or plans. SB 423 gives the DEP Secretary full discretion as to what standards are sufficient to protect waters of the state. It needs to explicitly require that modifications to permits or plans be as stringent as the standards in the Act so as not to create a loophole in regulation of ASTs. Public notice of these modifications should be required.

1. Require necessary information for source water protection planning. SB 423 creates new restrictions on disclosure of information that could prevent water utilities from being aware of threats to the water system. Information about the location and contents of tanks, including data on stored chemicals, must be shared with water utilities.

Here is a link to Ken Ward’s article that followed last Friday’s public hearing on SB 423.

>>>>>>>>>>

For more water updates, visit West Virginia Environmental Council

Marcellus shale drilling & fracking: boom & bust

The boom is becoming a bust; so how to handle this fracking bust?

From an Article by Lydia DePillis, Washington Post, January 15, 2015

PHOTO: Workers tap into Marcellus natural gas at an active hydraulic fracking operation outside of Wellsboro, Pa., operated by Shell. This rig is the only Shell crew operating in the area.

This is the introduction to a five part series about how communities can deal with a natural gas boom. Find the rest of the installments here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.

WELLSBORO, Pa. — The sand trucks barely rumble along the quaint main street in Wellsboro anymore. Three years ago, it was difficult to have a conversation with someone walking next to you, the roar of traffic was so constant. Driving, it could take an hour to get from one end of town to another. But the trucks also came with business: Mining companies had started drilling wells all over the rolling hills surrounding this town in northern Pennsylvania, extracting the precious natural gas that lay beneath.

Hydraulic fracturing (“fracking” for short) brought a bonanza to this town the likes of which it hadn’t seen even in the heydays of lumber and coal. With 800 wells drilled over five years, royalties paid to landowners for their mineral rights flowed through the community, helping people buy new farm equipment and donate to local charities. New tax revenues poured into local government coffers that never had much to begin with.

But like all booms, it only lasted while the money was good. Natural gas prices hit a high of $13.42 per million BTU in October 2005, stayed high for three years, then started falling, fast, bottoming out at $1.95 in April 2012, and stood at $3.48 last month. Without enough profit to justify further investment, most of the activity vaporized. Shell Oil, which had bought up most of the leases in Tioga County, went from a dozen drilling rigs to one. Businesses that had been gearing up for years of sustained growth were left hanging.

PHOTO: Workers tap into Marcellus natural gas at an active hydraulic fracking operation outside of Wellsboro, Pa., operated by Shell.

“With really no warning at all, the bottom fell out of that,” says Jim Weaver, the Tioga County planner, who advises the county’s commissioners on land use decisions. “In hindsight, looking at boom and bust cycles that have gone on forever, we should’ve known that. But when the dollar’s dangling in front of you and you’re chasing the carrot, before you know it you’re out on a limb, and the limb gets sawed off.”

Already, some states have decided to avoid the chase: In November, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced that he would not lift the state’s ban on fracking, out of concerns about the potential environmental and health impact. The 185-page report referenced studies conducted in Pennsylvania on outcomes like the birth weight of babies and the accident rate of truck traffic. While the evidence rarely showed conclusive adverse health impacts from fracking, it was enough to convince Cuomo that the benefits didn’t outweigh the risk.

For much of the rest of America with gas beneath it, however, there’s no going back. The discovery of “unconventional” oil and gas reserves in a handful of major subterranean shale formations known as “plays” — the Marcellus underneath Pennsylvania and Ohio, the Eagle Ford in Texas, the Bakken in North Dakota — have completely transformed American energy production, increasing income and tax revenues and driving unemployment down. The shale boom has been credited with reviving domestic manufacturing and bringing natural gas prices to levels many thought America would never see again, and even environmentally-minded politicians are reluctant to give up the economic stimulus the industry provides.

PHOTO: County planner Jim Weaver works in his office in the Tioga County Courthouse building. The natural gas boom has come and gone in Tioga County, Pa., and Weaver is in charge of making sure the community is developed in the way citizens would like.

“I want to have my cake and eat it too,” said Pennsylvania’s new Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf, in response to New York’s decision. But with gas prices so low — and other forms of energy, especially oil, becoming much less expensive — the future of communities who bet their future on fracking is uncertain. They are at risk of falling into what researchers have called the “resource curse,” where local economies over invest in a cash cow, only to sacrifice industries that might provide more sustainable growth over the long term, like tourism or manufacturing.

“Ultimately, Tioga County is a cautionary tale,” the authors wrote. “The economic benefits associated with shale development are limited, come at a price, and may disappear as swiftly as they arrived.”

America, after all, is a nation of booms and busts, from the gold rush of the 1850s to the housing bubble of the 1990s. In this latest boom, worst-case scenarios make headlines all the time: A crime wave and crippling fires and explosions struck North Dakota, for example, where cozy relationships between lawmakers and gas companies led to lax enforcement. Towns in Wyoming suffer when mining booms just pass through, over and over, while profits leave the state and then the country. And then, further down the line, the oil industry blows huge holes in the budgets of drilling-dependent states when prices sink too low to keep the rigs around.

Pennsylvania is trying to avoid that cycle, with mixed success. When gas drilling started in the mid-2000s, Pennsylvania was almost entirely new to the industry. And it has yielded undeniable benefits: According to investment advisors Raymond James, 90 percent of Pennsylvania’s job gains between 2005 and 2012 came from oil and gas. When you’re in the middle of that kind of fossil-fueled expansion, it’s tempting to think it might never come to an end.

But it always does. Whether because some newer, cheaper source of gas gets discovered, or because some key distribution point gets cut off, or because some ballot measure stops drillers in their tracks.

So the question is: If you’re in the path of the oil (and gas) industry, how can you gain from its presence, without becoming so dependent that everything falls apart once it leaves? In other words, can the resource curse be broken?

Tioga County has some of the answers. But they learned them the hard way. In the spring, researchers from the Pennsylvania Budget and Police Center did a case study on the county, and found that the positives and negatives of drilling activity basically came out in the wash.

“Ultimately, Tioga County is a cautionary tale,” the authors wrote. “The economic benefits associated with shale development are limited, come at a price, and may disappear as swiftly as they arrived.”

This is the introduction to a five part series about how communities can deal with a natural gas boom. Find the rest of the installments here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five.