The Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD) has fought stiff headwinds from the beginning. The organization was founded by a group of Pennsylvania shale industry people and environmentalists reaching across the isle to forge strict new standards both sides can live with. Environmental leftists, like Mamma Teresa Heinz Kerry and her Heniz Endowments, pulled support and have actively worked against the CSSD (see She Speaks! Teresa Heinz Kerry Talks re Endowments Firings, CSSD). Other so-called environmental groups like the William Penn Foundation also bailed. But new supporters stepped into the breach to step into their shoes (see CSSD Thrown a Lifeline from Richard King Mellon Foundation). On the industry side, only four companies have applied for and received CSSD certification to date: Chevron, Shell, CONSOL Energy and EQT. MDN has met and chatted with CSSD’s executive director Susan LeGross. She is an impressive leader for the organization. Susan has just penned an article appearing in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review making the case for the strict standards advocated by her organization. She takes the opportunity of renewed talk of shale drilling, spurred by Shell’s ethane cracker announcement, to make the case that it’s time to go “beyond the minimum” with shale drilling…
