Williams to Lay Pipeline in “Pristine” Lancaster County, PA
The rather boring information/news is this: Williams plans to install a 9.6 mile pipeline in Lancaster County, PA, part of an expansion project for the Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line (or Transco). The new pipeline will run under 7 creeks, two unkept areas overrun with weeds and trees, will involve cutting down a few trees and digging up some dirt–dirt that will be put back so you won’t even know it was ever disturbed.
However, in the hands of a talented propagandist, creeks become “high-quality streams,” unkept, rundown areas become “Natural Heritage Areas,” cutting down a few trees is turned into “clearing” trees–from (gasp) 26 acres! And digging up some dirt is converted into digging up 9 acres of (yes) “farmland.” What utter bilge…
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Yesterday the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR) released a new report titled “Shale-Gas Monitoring Report” (full copy embedded below), the first in a series of ongoing reports on the impacts of Marcellus Shale drilling on PA’s state-owned land, including state forests. The DCNR was given a $6 million budget more than three years ago to study drilling impacts. This is the first report, eagerly anticipated by anti-drilling groups like PennFuture. Unfortunately for them, the study contains no indications that drilling is a disaster for public lands, as they had wanted it to say. In fact, the report found that out of 2 million acres of state-owned land, only 1,500 acres were converted from “wild space” to use for drilling (roads, drill pads, compressor stations, etc.). That’s 0.075%–not even 1/10th of a single percentage point. In other words–nothing. Another 9,340 acres were partially developed. Still a very low number and not the environmental holocaust predicted by anti-drillers.
Once upon a time there was a man who worked really really hard. He was the type to arrive at work early, stay late, and go the extra mile. He paid (as we all do) nearly half of the money he earned in taxes–federal income tax, social security tax, Medicare tax, disability tax, property tax, school tax, state income tax, sales tax on everything he purchased, and fees on just about everything his hands ever touched. It adds up to about 50% of the man’s income (as it does for every single person reading this), whisked away and given to other people. However, because the man made a pretty good salary, the man’s neighbor had a brilliant idea: Each day when the man arrived home the neighbor was waiting, with gun in hand. He would point the gun at the man’s head and demand the man give him “just 5%” of what the man earned that day. It was so easy, the neighbor did this every day–and he targeted other nearby suckers, er hard-working people too–collecting 5% from them.